

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 









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Compiled and Edited 
By 

MARGARET M. BROWN 

V 





ANGEL GUARDIAN PRESS 
BOSTON, MASS. 




To my Mother 

this Book is affectionately inscribed 
by the compiler. 


NEW YORK 

1914 


MAY I9!9!4 

©CIA374272 
c }Vv • / * 




Copyright 1914 
By 

MARGARET M. BROWN 


JANUARY 4 

Wallflower. cheiranthus cheiri. Fidelity in misfortune. 

The yellow wallflower, strained with iron brown. Thomson. 

On its green scrap, by and by 
I shall smell the flowering thyme: 

On its wall the wall flower. Sidney Dobell. 

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own 
And thy cheek unprofaned by a tear 
That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known 
To which time will but make thee more dear. 

No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets 
And as truly loves on till the close 
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets 

The same look which she gave when he rose. Moore. 


JANUARY 5 

Helebore. helleborus viridis. Scandal. 


There mournful cypresse grew in greatest store; 

Dead sleeping poppy; and black hellebore. Spencer. 

Black hellebore .Purge the veins 

Of melancholy and cheer the heart 
Of those black fumes that make it smart, 

And clears the brain of misty fogs 

Which dull our senses, our soul clogs. Robert Burton. 
Praises undeserved is scandal in disguise. Pope. 

Stories like dragons are hard to kill. Whittier. 


JANUARY 6 

Lotus flower. Lotus. Estranged love. 

The lotus lifts her golden crown above the heads of the boatmen. 

Longfellow. 

The lotus flower whose leaves I now 
Kiss silently 

Far more than words can tell thee 

How I worship thee. Moore. 

The lotus lolls on the water 
And opens its heart of gold 
And over its broad leaf pavement 

Never a ripple is rolled. Wm. W. Story. 

In many ways does the full heart reveal 

The presence of the love it would conceal 

But in far more th’ estranged heart lets know 

The absence of the love which yet it fain would show. Anon. 


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JANUARY 7 

Chestnut tree. Aesculus. Do me justice. 

I have breathed on the south and the chestnut flowers, 

By thousands have burst from the forest bowers. Mrs. Hemans. 

A woman’s tongue 

That gives not half so great a blow to the ear 

As will a chestnut in a farmer’s fire. Shakespeare. 

The squirrel, he springs from his covet now 

To prank it away on the chestnut bough. Chas. Fenno Hoffman. 

To be perfectly just is an attribute of the Divine nature; to be 
so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man. Addison. 


JANUARY 8 

Guelder roses. viburnum alnifolis. Winter. 

When, by their own rich beauty downward bent, 

Soft guelder roses hang their tufts of snow. 

Mrs. Norton. 

And the guelder rose 

In great stillness dropped and ever dropped 
Her wealth about her feet. 

Jean Ingelow. 

Beware, the January month beware 
Those hurtful days, that keenly piercing air 
Which flays the hurds; when icicles are cast 
O’er frozen earth, and sheathe the nipping blast. 

Hesiod. 


JANUARY 9 

Laurel. laurus nobilis. Glory. 

His crown of laurel leaves 

With bloody hand the victor weaves. Scott. 

Oh who can love the laurel leaf 
Plucked from the gory field of death? 

Eliza Cook. 

The laurel, meed of mighty conquerours 

And poets sage. Spencer. 

Glory is like a circle in the water which never ceases to enlarge itself 
Till by broad spreading it disperse to naught. Shakespeare. 


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JANUARY 10 

Gorse. Endearing affection. 

Mountain gorse ever golden 

Cankered not the whole year long. E. B. Browning. 

Through the gorse covet bound the deer; 

The gorse whose latest splendor won 
Make all the fulgent wolds appear 

Bright as the pastures of the sun. Aubrey de Vere. 

With her me thinks life’s little hour 
Passed like the fragrance of a flower 
That leaves upon the vernal wind 

Sweetness we ne’er again can find. James Montgomery. 


JANUARY 11 

Cockscomb. celosia cristata Affectation. 

Where the daffodil wore her lace, 

And the prince’s feather blushed in the face 
And the cockscomb looked as vain as his race. 

Phebe Cary. 

Of all the fools that pride can boast 
A cockscomb claims distinction most. Gay. 

Affectation is an awkward and forced imitation of what should be 
genuine and easy, wanting the beauty that accompanies what is natural. 

Locke. 


JANUARY 12 

Darnel. lolium perenne. 

Darnel and all the idle weeds that grow 

In our sustaining corn. Shakespeare. 

The crimson darnel flower, the blue bottle and gold, 
which though esteemed for weeds, yet for their dainty lines 
and for their scent not ill they for their purpose choose. 

Drayton. 

Life’s briers and roses, its gladness and gloom 
Do they vanish together? Oh no! 

The flowerets we pluck and condense their perfume 
The weeds to the desert we throw. 

Browning. 


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JANUARY 13 

Columbine. aquilegia Canadensis. Folly. 

There’s fennel for you and columbine. Shakespeare. 

We’ll gather rich stores from the flowering vine, 

And the golden horns of the columbine. Frances H. Green. 

’Tis folly’s flower that homely one 

That universal guest makes every garden but a type 

Of every human breast 

For though you tend both mind and bower 

There’s still a nook for folly’s flower. Twamley. 

Columbines in purple dressed 

Nod o’er the ground bird’s hidden nest. W. C. Bryant. 

Since love is blind from folly’s blow 
Let folly be the guide of love 

Where’er the boy may choose to go. W. C. Bryant. 


JANUARY 14 


Ash. flaximus Americana. Grandeur. 

The fair smooth ash, with leaves of graceful gold. Geo. Lunt. 

The ash, her purple drops forgivingly 

And sadly; breaking not the general hush; 

And maple swamps glow like a sunset sea. 

Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush, 

All round the wood’s edge creeps the skirting blaze 
Of blushes low, as when on cloudy days 

Ere rain falls the cautious farmer burns his brush. 

Lowell. 

When, thunder struck, that eagle Wolsey fell; 
When royal favor as an ebbing sea, 

Like a leviathan, his grandeur left, 

His gasping grandeur—naked on the sand. 

Young. 

The towering ash is fairest in the woods. 

Virgil. 

JANUARY 15 


Gourd. lagenaria vulgaris. Extent. 

Bulk. 

The gourd and the bean beside his door 

Bloomed where their flowers ne’er opened before. 

Bryant. 

The gourd embraced the rose bush in its ramble 
The thistle and the stock together grew, 

The hoolyhock and bramble. 

Hood. 

It is not growing like a tree 

In bulke doth make man better be. 

Ben 

Johnson . 


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JANUARY 16 

Eringo. eryngium amethystium. Lusty. 

Here’s chaste vervain and lustful eringe 
Health'preserving sage 
And rue that cures old age 

With a world of others. Markham and Sampson. 

Beside the sea-holme here that spreaderth all our shore 

The sick consuming man so powerful to restore 

Whose root the erynge is. Drayton. 

Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty: 

For in my youth I never did apply 

Hot and rebellious liquers in my blood. Shakespeare. 


JANUARY 17 

Strawberry. fragaria virginiana. Excellence. 

Come, come ere the season is over 
To the fields where the strawberries grow. 

Chas. G. Eastman. 

The strawberry grows underneath the nettle 
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best 
neighbored by fruits of baser quality 

Shakespeare. 

Content with food which nature freely bred 
On wildings and strawberries they fed. 

Dryden. 

The growth of what is excellent, so hard 

T’ attain perfection in this nether world. Cowper. 


JANUARY 18 

Samphire. crithmum maritimum. 

Half way down 

Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade, 

Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head; 

The fishermen, that walk upon the beach 
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark, 

Diminished to her cock; her cock a buoy 

Almost too small for sight. Shakespeare. 

Over the trackless past somewhere 
Lie the lost days of our tropic youth 
Only regained by faith and prayer, 

Only recalled by prayer and plaint; 

Each lost day has its patron saint. Bret Harte. 


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JANUARY 19 

Manchineel. Hippomane Mancinella. Falsehood. 

And some most false 
False and fair foliaged as the manchineel 
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade 
E’en mid the storm. 

S. T. Coleridge. 

Half truths are falsehood’s bait—too near 
They roam to error’s maze of doubt, 

And, like some scared, out lying deer 
O’er leap the limit, in and out. 

Aubrey de Vere. 


JANUARY 20 

Night shade. atropa belladonna. Uncertainty. 

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed 
By nightshade. John Keats. 

And the gathering clouds that strew the heavens 
Like floating purple wreaths of mournful nightshade. 

Frances Kemble Butler. 

Through dreary beds of tangled fern 
Through groves of nightshade dark and dern. 

J. R. Drake. 

Where a white lily now and then 
Blooms in the midst of noxious weeds 

And deadly nightshade. Longfellow. 

Heaven makes sport of human affairs 

And the present hour gives no promise of the next. Ovid. 


JANUARY 21 

Agnus-Castus. Agnus-Castus. Coldness. 

Of laurel some, of woodbine many more, 

And wreathes of agnus-castus others bore. 

Dryden. 

Some of lauer and some full pleasantly 
Had chaplets of woodbine and saddely 
Some of agnus-castus ware also 

Chapelets freshe. Chaucer. 

Love is not love when it is mingled with respects. Shakespeare. 


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JANUARY 22 

Rhododendron. Rhododendron ponticum. Danger. 

Pleased with their toil the healers sought the cell 
Where rhododendron, like some drooping maid, 

Timid and beauteous hides its golden locks. 

O’er pine clad hills and dusky plains 
In silent state rhododendron reigns 
And spreads in beauty’s softest blooms 

Her purple glories through the glooms. Shaw. 

I will go, a stranger to peril and danger 
My heart is so loyal in every degree; 

For he’s constant and kind, and courageous in mind. 

Good luck to my blackbird, where ever he be. Sir Chas. G. Duffy. 


JANUARY 23 

Endive. Cicherium. Frugality. 

Let olives endives mallows light 

Be all my fare. Horace. 

A precious thing is all the more precious to us if it has been won 
by work and economy. Ruskin. 

Knowledge is gold to him who can discern 
That he who loves to know must love to learn. 

J. B. O'Reilly. 

On upland slopes the shepherd’s mark 
The hour when, as the dial true 
Cichorium to the towering lark 

Lifts her soft eye serenely blue. Mrs. Charlotte Smith. 


JANUARY 24 

Grass . anthoxanthum odoratum. Submission. 

We trample grass and prize the flowers of May; 

Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away. 

Robt. Southwell , S. J. 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 

And groping blindly above it for light 
Climb to a soul in grass and flower. 

Lowell. 

It grieves me to the soul 

To see how man submits to man’s control: 

How overpower’d and shackled minds are led 
In vulgar tracks, and to submission bred. 

Crabbe. 


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JANUARY 25 

Pine. pinus strobus. Pity. 

Ancient pines 

Ye bear no record of the years of man 
Spring is your sole historian. 

Bayard Taylor. 

And still the pine flat topped and dark and tall 
In lordly right predominant o’er all. 

L. Hunt. 

If every man’s internal care, 

Were written on his brow, 

How many would our pity share 
Who raise our envy now? 

Bonaventure Metastasis. 


JANUARY 26 

Furze. ulez europaens. 

But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad 
The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze. 


Love,—the brighest part of our lot, 
Love,—the only charm of living; 
Love,—the only gift worth giving. 


I know transplanted human worth 
Will bloom to profit everywhere. 

Tennyson. 


JANUARY 27 

Balm. melissa officinalis. Sympathy. 

O’er each wound the balm he drew. 

J. R. Drake. 

Let the balm flower sleep where the small brooks twine. 

Edith May. 

Our virgins fed her with their kindly bowls 
Of fever-balm and sweet agamite. 

Thos. Campbell. 

O, ask not, hope thou too much for sympathy below 
Few are the hearts whence one same touch 
Bide the sweet fountains flow. 

Felicia Hemans. 


Love for all seasons. 


S. T. Coleridge. 


Cristeval di Castilleje. 


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JANUARY 28 


* Meadowsweet, spiraea ultnaria. 

Uselessness. 

Willow herbs are seen 

To nod from banks from whence depend 
Rich cymes of fragrant meadowsweet. 

Calder Campbell. 

And near the unfrequented road 

By way sides scorched with barren heat 

In clouded pink or softer white 

She holds the summer’s generous light 

Our native meadowsweet. 

Dora Goodale. 

Nothing useless is or low 

Each thing in its place is best, 

And what seems but idle show 
Strengthens and supports the rest. 

Longfellow. 

JANUARY 29 


Venus looking glass. specularia perfoliata 

Flattery. 

Straunge adventure did from Britayne feet 

To seeke her lover (love far sought alas,) 

Whose image she had seen in Venus looking glass. 

Spencer . 

Beware of flattery; ’tis a flow’ry weed, 

Which oft offends the very idol vice 

Whose shrine it would perfume. 

Fenton. 

The eye see’s not itself 

But by reflection from other things. 

Shakespeare. 

JANUARY 30 


Immortells. Gnaphalium. 

Immortality. 

In vain the lances of the frost, 

Seek for some tender things to kill 

They cannot hurt the immortelles. 

Laura C. Redden. 

Immortality, o’ersweeps time 

All pains, all tears, all time, all fears and peals. 

Like the eternal thunder of the deep 

Into my ears this truth 

Thou liv’st forever. 

Byron. 











JANUARY 31 

Anemone. anemone nemorosa. Frailty. 

The frail leaf'd white anemone. 

Matthew Arnold. 

Coy anemone that ne’er uncloses 

Her lips until they’re blown on by the wind. 

Horace Smith. 

Gay circle of anemones danced on their stalks. 

W. C. Bryant. 

On the wild waste where never blossom came 
Save the wild wind-flower in the billows’ cap 

J. R. Lowell. 

Bide thou where the poppy blows 
With wind-flower frail and fair. 

Bryant. 

By wind unshaken hang in dream 

The wind-flowers o’er their dark green lair; 

And those ensanguined cups that seem 
Not bodied forms but woven of air. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

Fie on’t Oh fie. ’Tis an unweeded garden 
That’s gone to seed; things rank and gross in nature 

Posses it merely.Frailty thy name is woman. 

Shakespeare. 

Love did his reason blind 

And love’s the noblest frailty of the mind. 

Dryden. 


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23 




FEBRUARY 1 

Willow. Salix. Forsaken. 

See the soft green willow springing 
Where the waters gently pass 
Every way her free arms flinging 

O’er the moss and reedy grass. J. Keble. 

There is a willow aslant the brook 

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. Shakespeare. 

With ripe clusters of the purple vine 

The violet of the fig, the scarlet flush 

Of granates peeping from the parted rind 

The downy willow catkins speckled with gold. Percival. 


Do not forsake yourself; for they that do 

Offend and teach the world to leave them too. Pope. 


FEBRUARY 2 


Snowdrop. galanthus nivalis. 

Consolation. 

Many, many welcomes, 
February fair maid. 

Tennyson. 

Pretty firstling of the year 

Herald of the host of flowers. 


Hast thou left thy cavern drear 
In the hope of summer hours? 

Barry Cornwall. 

The snowdrop’s tender white and green. 

Henry Timrod 

0, there is never sorrow of heart, 
That shall lack a timely end 

If but to God we turn and ask, 

Of Him to be our friend. 

Wordsworth. 

FEBRUARY 3 


Foxglove. digitalis purpurea. 

Insincerity. 

Foxglove and nightshade side by side, 
Emblems of punishment and pride. 

W. Scott. 

The foxglove’s dappled bell. 

Tennyson. 

I know they are gathering the foxglove’s bell 
And the long fern leaves by the sparkling well. 

Mrs. Hemans. 

The foxglove tall 

Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust. 


Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark 

Or mountain finch alighting. 

S. T. Coleridge. 

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, 

Men were deceivers ever. 

One foot in sea and one on shore 
To one thing constant never. 

Shakespeare. 


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FEBRUARY 4 

Ascelpias. ascelpia syriaca. Cure for the heartache. 

While eyebright and ascelpias reared 
Their untrained stalks between. 

Lydia Sigourney. 

Love is a sickness full of woes 
All remedies refusing, 

A plant that with most cutting grows, 

Most barren with best using. 

Sam'L D any ell. 


FEBRUARY 5 

Bitter-sweet. solanum Dulcamara. Truth. 

Equal foes, equipped complete 
This so bitter, that so sweet 
In eternal warfare met 
Then in sorest pain and fret 
Did my heart thy name repeat 

Bitter-sweet. 

Elizabeth W. Dennison. 

Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam. 

Milton. 

Know then this truth [enough for man to know] 

Virtue alone is happiness below. 

Pope. 


FEBRUARY 6 

Blue Hyacinth. campanula rotundejlora. Constancy. 

The hyacinth’s for constancy 

With its unchanging blue. Burns. 

The hyacinths purple and white and blue 

Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew 

Of music. Shelly. 

What flowers are these? 

In Dioclesian’s gardens the most beauteous 
Compared with these are weeds, Is it not February? 

Phillip Massenger. 

Such love’s a cowslip ball to fling, 

A moment’s pretty pastime; 

I give—all me, if anything 

The first time and the last time. E. B. Browning. 


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FEBRUARY 7 

Jack in the Pulpit. arisoema triphyllum. 

Jack-in-the-pulpit preaches to-day; 

Under the green tree just over the way. 

Squirrel and song sparrow high on their perch 
Hear the sweet lily-bells ringing to church. 

Edited by J. G. Whittier. 

Your voiceless lips, Oh flowers, are living preachers; 

Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book 
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers 
From loneliest nook. 

Horace Smith. 


FEBRUARY 8 

Goat's rue. Tragopogon pratensis. Reason. 

Broad o’er its imbricated cup 

The goatsbeard spreads its golden rays, 

But shuts its cautious petals up 
Retreating from the noon time blaze. 

Mrs. Charlotte Smith. 

Reason’s progressive instinct is complete; 

Swift instinct leaps: slow reason feebly climbs. 

Brutes soon their zenith reach. In age they 
No more could know, do, covet, or enjoy. 

Were men to live coeval with the sun 
The patriarch pupil would be learning still. 

Shakespeare. 


FEBRUARY 9 


Narcissus. Narcissus. Self Love. 

The narcissus, fairest among them all. 

P. B. Shelly. 

Foolish narcissus, that likes the watery shore. 

Spencer. 

The pale narcissus on the bank, in vain 

Transformed, gazes on himself again. Pope. 


Self love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, 

As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; 

The center moved, a circle straight succeeds, 

Another still, and still another spreads 
Friend, parent, neighbor, first it will embrace, 

Its country next—next the whole human race. Pope. 


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FEBRUARY 10 

Mezereons. daphne mezereons. Desire to please , 

Mezereons too, 

Though leafless, well altered and thick beset 
With blushing wreaths investing every spray. 

Cowper. 

It is no secret I tell you, nor am I ashamed to declare it: 

I have liked to be with you, to see you, to speak to you always. 

Longfellow. 


FEBRUARY 11 

Fuchsia. Fuchsia coccinia. The ambition of my love. 

“The garden is in bloom” he said 
With lilies pale and slender, 

With roses and verbenas red, 

And fuchsias purple splendor.” 

Mrs. M. E. Bradley. 

No lance have I, in joust or fight 
To splinter in my lady’s sight; 

But at her feet how blest were I 
For any need of hers to die. 

J. G. Whittier. 


FEBRUARY 12 

Willow-herb. epilobium hireuyum. Pretention. 

Purple willow-herb bent over 
To her shadow fair 
Meadowsweet in feathery clusters 
Perfumed all the air. 

A. A. Proctor. 
For see, Ah see, 

The sportive tyrant with her left plucks 
The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow 
Lychins, and willow-herb and foxglove bells. 

S. T. Coleridge. 

An open foe may prove a curse, 

But a pretended friend is worse. Gay. 


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Primroses. 


FEBRUARY 13 

Primula vulgaris. Early youth. 

With fairest flowers whilst summer lasts and I live here 
I’ll sweeten thy sad grave; thou shalt not lack 
The flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose. 

Shakespeare. 


The pale primroses 

That die unmarried ere they can behold 

Bright Proebus in his strength. Shakespeare. 


The primrose pale and the violet flower 

Found in each clift a narrow bower. Scott. 


The primrose I will put the firstling of the year. Burns. 
O fairest season in the life of man. James MacDonald. 


FEBRUARY 14 

Crocus. Crocus. Cheerfulness. 

The crocus was hailed as a happy flower. 

And the holy saint that day 

Poured out on the earth their golden shower 

To light his votarie’s way. Lucy Hooper. 

What pious hand shall bring 

The first found crocus from reluctant spring? Walter Savage Landon. 

And half by nature, half by reason 
Can still the pliant heart prepare, 

The mind allumed to every season 

The merry heart that laughs at care. Henry Hart Millman. 

“The crocus hastens to the shrine 
Of primrose love on St. Valentine.” 


FEBRUARY 15 

Polyanthus. primula polyantha. Confidence. 

“The hyacinth and the polyanthus render 
From their deep hearts an offering of love.” 

Julia H. Scott. 

The daisy, primrose, violet blue 
And polyanthus of unnumbered days. 

Thomson. 

Confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom. 

Chatham. 


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FEBRUARY 16 

Sumac. Rhus Typina. Splendour. 

The tips of the sumach have darkened their down. 

Alfred H. Street. 

Bitting storter the short green grass 
And hedge of sumach and sassafras. 

Alice Cary. 

Around it still the sumac grows and blackberry vines are running. 

J. G. Whittier. 

The splendour of our rank and state 
Are shadows, not substantial things. 

Young. 


FEBRUARY 17 

Dittany. Cunila Mariana. 

There blossomed suddenly a magic bed 

Of sacred dittany. Keats. 

A branch of healing dittany she brought 

Which in the Cretan fields with care she sought. Virgil. 

O, woman in our hour of ease 
Uncertain, coy and hard to please 
And variable as the shade 
By the light quivering aspen made 
When pain and anguish wring the brow 
A minstering angel thou. 

Scott. 


FEBRUARY 18 

Pennyroyal Hedeoma pulegioides. Flee away. 

Over the pastures he cropped, made fragrant by sweet pennyroyal. 

Longfellow. 

But the tailor’s front garden grows two cabbages, 
a dock, a ha’porth of pennyroyal, two dandelions and a thistle. 

Hood. 

Then quick we have but a second 
Fill round, fill round while you may: 

For time the churl, hath beckoned, 

And we must away, away. 

Moore. 


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FEBRUARY 19 

Marvel of Peru. Mirabilis Dichotoma. Timidity. 

Nay, let our shadowy beauty bloom 
When the stars give quiet light 
And let us offer our faint perfume 
On the silent shrines of night. 

Mrs. Hemans. 

Solitaire amant des nuits 
Pourquoi ces timides alarmes 
Quand ma muse au jour que tu fuis 
S apprete a reveler les charmes. 


FEBRUARY 20 

Yellow Jassamine. Gelsinium Sempervirens. Elegance. 

Where the jasmine’s golden stars 
Glimmer soft through emerald bars. 

Mrs. J. C. Dorr. 

What odors scatter from jasamine bowers. 

R. Southy. 

At my silent window sill 
The jassamine peeps in. 

Bryant. 

Elegance floats about thee like a dress, 

Melting the airy motion of thy form 
Into one swaying grace. 

N. P. Willis. 


FEBRUARY 21 

Starwort. Arenaria. Aversion. 

Among the loose and arid sands 
The humble arenarie creeps; 

Slowly the purple star expands, 

But soon within its calyx sleeps. Mrs. Charlotte Smith. 

And the sea lavender, whose lilac blooms 

Drew from the saline soil a richer hue 

Than when they grew on yonder towering cliff 

Quivers in flowerless greenness to the wind 

No sound is heard, save where the sea bird screams 

Its lonely presage of the coming storm. 

And the sole blossom which can glad the eye 

Is yon pale Starwort nodding to the wind. Anon. 


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FEBRUARY 22 

Amaracus. 

Violet, amaracus, and asphodel, 

Lotus and lilies; and a wind arose 
And over head the wandering ivy and vine 
This way and that in many a wild festoon 
Ran riot garlanding the gnarled boughs 

With branch and berry, and flower thro’ and thro’. Tennyson. 

Things base and vile, holding no quality 
Love can transpose to form and dignity; 

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; 

And therefore is wing’d cupid painted blind; 

Nor have love’s mind of any judgment taste; 

Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste; 

And therefore is love said to be a child. Shakespeare. 


FEBRUARY 23 

Century Plant. Agave Americana. Grief. 

By humble growth of a hundred years 
It reached its blooming time 


But the plant to the flower is a sacrifice 
For it blooms but once and dies. 

Thos. C. Harbaugh. 

Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows 
Which show like grief itself, but are not so 
For sorrow’s eye glazed with blinding tears 
Divides one thing entire to many objects like perspectives, 
which rightly gazed upon 

Show nothing but confusion. Shakespeare. 


FEBRUARY 24 

Mimosa. Mimosa Sensitiva. Sensitiveness. 

Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mimosa. 

Longfellow. 

Weak with nice sense, the chaste mimosa stands; 

From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands. 

Darwin. 

Which she would shrink from as the gentle plant, 
Fern-leafed mimosa folds itself away. 

Mrs. Norton. 

A sensitive plant in a garden grew 

And the young winds fed it with silver dew, 

And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light 

And closed them beneath the kisses of night. Shelly 


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FEBRUARY 25 


Saffron crocus. crocus sativus. 

Mirth. 

And saffron crocus in whose chalice bright, 

A cool libation hoarded for the moon 

Is kept. 

T. Hood. 

Hail many colored messenger that ne’er 

Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter 

Who with thy saffron wings upon my flowers 
Diffused honey-drops refreshing showers. 

Jog on, jog on, the foot pathway, 

And merily hent the stile-a: 

A merry heart goes all the day, 

Your sad tires in a mile-a. 

Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare. 

FEBRUARY 26 


Galingale. Alpinia Galangr. 

Happiness. 

Meadows set with slender galingale. 

Tennyson. 

Cheerful galingale. 

Spencer. 

Happiness is a road side flower, growing in the highways of usefulness 
Plucked, it shall wither in thy hand, passed by it fragrance to thy 
spirit. Tupper. 

Go wing thy flight from star to star. 

From world to luminous world, as far 

As the universe spreads its flaming wall 
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres 

And multiply each through endless years 
One minute of Heaven is worth them all 

Moore. 

FEBRUARY 27 


Bramble flower. Rubus. 

Envy. 

Thy fruit full well the school boy knows 

Wild bramble of the brake 

So put thou forth thy small white rose 

I love it for his sake. 

Ebenezer Elliott. 

He skips along in lightsome mood: 

And now he treads the bramble bush. 

J. R. Drake. 

’Tis much when scepters are in children’s hands, 

But more when envy breeds unkind division. 

Then comes the ruin, then begins confusion. 

Shakespeare. 


40 













FEBRUARY 28 


Purple clover. trifolium pratense. 

Industry. 

Rare ’broidery of the purple clover. 

Tennyson. 

The wild bees hum about the beds of thyme, 
And bend the clover bells and eglantine. 

R. 

H. Stoddard. 

In every rank great or small 
’Tis industry supports us all. 

Gray. 

FEBRUARY 29 


Four leaf clover. 

Be mine. 

A little four leaf clover grew 

As robes that grace the fairy queen 

And fresh as hopes of early youth 

When life is love and love is truth 

A talisman of constant love, 

This humble clover sure shall prove. 

Sarah Hale. 

If all the world and love were young 

And truth on every shepherd’s tongue 

These pleasures might my passion move 

To live with thee and be my love. 

Sir W. Raleigh. 


42 





43 







MARCH 1 

Leek. allium porrum. Domestic economy. 

Why on St. David’s day do Welshmen seek 
To beautify their hats with verdant leek? 

I’ll knock his leek 

About his pate upon St. David’s day. 

Shakespeare. 

A penny saved is two pence clear 
A pin a day’s a groat a year. 

Benjamin Franklin. 

To balance fortune by a just expense 
Join with economy, magnificence. 

Pope. 


MARCH 2 

Osier. Dianthera. Frankness. 

But where the lake slept deep and still 

Dank osiers fringed the swamp and hill. Scott. 

If love makes me forsworn how shall I swear to love? 

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed. 

Though to my self, to thee I’ll faithful prove 

These thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed. 

Shakespeare. 

A king may make a belted knight, 

A marquise, duke or a ’that; 

But an honest man’s aboon his might 
Guid faith he manna fa’ that. 

Burns. 


MARCH 3 

Mint. mentha viridis. Virtue. 

Before my door the box-edged border lies 
Where flowers of mint and thyme and tansy rise. 

Scott. 

All 

Enriched along their borders with wild mint 
And pink and gillyflowers both large and small 

Alice Cary. 

Virtue is beauty and vice the deformity of the soul. 

Socrates. 


44 





















MARCH 4 

Chickweed. stellaria media. Simplicity. 

Up fairy, quit thy chickweed bow.pr, 

The cricket has called the second hour. Jos. R. Drake. 

Give me a look, give me a face, 

That makes simplicity a grace. 

Robes loosely flowing, hair as free, 

Such sweet neglect more taketh me, 

Than all the adulteries of art; 

That strikes my eyes but not my heart. Ben Johnson. 

Oh I do love thee sweet simplicity 

For of thy lays the lulling simpleness 

Goes to my heart and smooths each small distress 

Distress tho’ small yet happ’ly great to me. Sam'l. T. Coleridge. 


MARCH 5 

Red Columbine. aquilegia vulgaris. Anxious. 

The morning’s blush she made it thine, 

The morn’s sweet breath she gave to thee; 

And in thy look my columbine 

Each fond remembered spot she bade me see. Jones Very. 
A woodland walk 

A quest of river grapes, a mocking thrush 

A wild rose and rock loving columbine 

Salve my worst wound. Emerson. 

The aquilegia sprinkled on the rocks 
A scarlet rain Bayard Taylor. 

Where love is great the littlest doubts are fears 

Where little fears grow great, great love grows there. Shakespeare. 


MARCH 6 

Lemon Blossom. Citrus Limonum. Discretion. 

Where the shade of the palm tree is over my home 
And the lemon and orange are white in their bloom. 

Whittier. 

The light clear element which the isle wears 
Is heavy with the scent of lemon flowers. 

P. B. Shelly. 

Scatter from the scented trees 
The lemon blossoms on the grass. 

T. B. Aldrich. 

But care in poetry must still be had 

It asks discretion ev’n in running mad. Pope. 


46 















MARCH 7 

Adonis Flos. adonis autumnalis. Sad memories. 

In which the cunning hand was pourtrahed 
The love of Venus and her paramoure, 

The fair Adonis was turned to a flower. 

Spencer. 

On the discolour’d grass Adonis lay 
The monster tramping o’er his beauteous prey 
Yet dares not Venus with a change surprise 
And in a flower bid her fall’n hero rise. 

A non. 

Oh, how cruelly sweet are the echoes that start 
When memory plays an old tune on the heart. 

Eliza Cook. 


MARCH 8 

Sloe. Prunus Spinosa Impression. 

Before thy leaves thou comest once more white blossoms of the sloe. 

Ebenezer Elliott. 

Where clustering sloes in glossy order rise. 

Robt. Bloomfield. 

Still o’er these scenes my memory wakes, 

And fondly broods with miser care; 

Time but the impression deeper makes, 

As streams their channels deeper wear. 

Burns. 


MARCH 9 

Calamus. Acorus Calamus 

And he felt new life in his sinews shoot 
As he drank the juice of the calamus root, 

J. 

And the maple grove across the road 

And the hollow where the cool spring flowed. 

And the greenly mint and the calamus showed. 


The perfect victory is to triumph over one’s self. 

Thomas A. Kempis. 


Victory. 

R. Drake. 

P. Cary. 


48 










MARCH 10 


Lark-heels. ranunculaciae. 

Fickleness. 

Primroses, first born child of ver 

Merry spring time harbinger, 

With her bells dim; 

Oxlips in their cradels growing 

Marigolds in death beds growing 

Lark-heels trim. Beaumont and Fletcher. 

The larkspur listens—I hear, I hear, 

The lily whispers I wait. 

Tennyson. 

Read it sweet maid though it be done but slightly; 

Who can show all his love, doth love but lightly. 

Sam'l . Danyell. 

MARCH 11 


Burdock. AraciumLappa. Importunity. 

The bean vine with the lilac interlaced,. 

The sturdy burdock choked its slender neighbor 

The spicy pink. All tokens were effaced 

Of human care and labor. 

T. Hood. 

Against all sense you do importune her. 

Should she kneel down, in mercy of this fact, 

Her brother’s ghost his paved bed would break, 

And take her hence in horror. 

Shakespeare. 

MARCH 12 


White violet. viola blanda. 

Modesty. 

Where its long rings uncurts the form 
The violet nestling low, 

Casts back the white lid of its urn 

Its purple streaks to show. 

Alfred B. Street. 

So modest worth in humble guise 

Retiring shuns the gazing eye: 

While round the hallowed spot arise 

A thousand sweets that never die. 

H. I. Johns. 

St. Fina’s flowers. 

Italian. 

The violet is for modesty. 

Burns. 

True modesty is a discerning grace 

And only blushes at the proper place. 

Pope. 


50 






51 






MARCH 13 


Eyebright. euphrasia officinalis. 

Delight. 

Yet euphrasy may not be unsung 

That gives dim eyes to wander leagues around. 

Wm. Shenstone. 

Then purged with euphrasy and rue 

The visual nerve for he had much to see. 

Milton. 

And what delights can equal those 

That stir the spirits inner deeps 

When one that loves and knows not reaps 

A truth from one who loves and knows. 

Tennyson. 

MARCH 14 


Blue bottle centaury. erythraea centaurium. 

Hope in love. 

Of fumatory, centaury, and spurge: 

And of ground ivy add a leaf or two 

All which within our yard or garden grew. 

Dryden. 

This flower my darling cherished 

Honored and crowned shall be 

Hence forth ’tis the Kaiserblumen 

The flower of Germany. 

Celia Thaxter. 

No happiness but holds a taste 

Of something sweeter after all; 

No depth of agony but feels 

Some fragrance of abiding trust 

Whatever death unlocks the seal 

The mute beyond is just. 

J. W. Riley. 

MARCH 15 


Myrtle. Myrtus Communis. 

Love. 

Young love is in the myrtle found. 

Chazet. 

A chamber, myrtle-walled embower’d high. 

J. Keats. 

Would that thou wert more strong, at least less fair 

Land of the orange grove and myrtle bower. 

Edmund D. Griffin. 

Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead 
of the briar shall come up the myrtle. Bible. 

It is the heart and not the brain 

That to the highest doth attain 

And he who followeth love’s behest 

Far excelleth all the rest. 

Longfellow. 


-ft. 


52 







53 






MARCH 16 

Daffodil. Narcissus. Chivalry. 

For the flower now that frightened thou lett’st fall 

From Dis’s wagon: daffodils 

That come before the swallows dare, and take 

The winds of March with beauty. Shakespeare. 

Ere March made sweet the weather 

With daffodils and starling. A. G. Swinburne. 

What far fetched influence all my fancy frills, 

With singing birds and dancing daffodils. J. R. Lowell. 

Naught is more honourable to a knight, 

Nor better doth beseem brave chivalry, 

Than to defend the feeble in their right 

And wrong redress in such as wend awry. Spencer. 


MARCH 17 

Shamrock. trifolium repens. Light-heartedness. 

Oh, the shamrock, the green immortal shamrock 
Chosen leaf 
Of bard and chief 

Old Erin’s native shamrock. Moore. 

On favored Erin’s crest be seen, 

The flower she loves of emerald green. W. Scott. 

The shamrock with its holy leaf 

Is spared by Irish sickles. Geo. Thornbury. 

He seemed, like birds created to be glad; 

And naught but love could make him taste distress. Sir W. Davenport. 

“There’s a dear little plant that grows in our Isle 
’Twas St. Patrick himself sure that set it.” 


vy MARCH 18 

Heliotrope. heliolropium Peruvianum. 

Dim, sweet scented heliotrope for hope. 


I Love you. 
C. G. Rosetti. 


There is a flower whose modest eye 

Is turned with looks of light and love 

Who breathes her softest sweetest sigh 

Whene’er the sun is bright above. Anon. 

The faint fair heliotrope, who hangs 

Like bashful maid her head. P. Cary. 

I love thee so that, maugre all my pride, 

Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide. 

Do not extort thy reasons from this clause; 

For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause; 

But rather reason thus with reason fetter, 

Love sought is good but given unsought is better. Shakespeare. 


54 






55 






MARCH 19 


Star of Bethlehem . ornethogalum luten Let us follow Jesus. 

Pale aa a pensive nun 

The Bethlehem star her face unveils. 

When o’er the mountain peers the sun, 

But shades it from the vesper gales. Mrs. 

Charlotte Smith. 

Now safely moored my perils o’er 

I’ll sing first in night’s diadem 

Forever and forever more 

The star—the star of Bethlehem. 

H. K. White. 

But let one cloud the prospect dim 

The wind its quiet stillness mar 

At once we raise our prayers to Him 

Whose light is life’s best guiding star. 

Wm. Leggett. 

MARCH 20 


Wolfsbane. Aconitum. 

Misanthropy. 

No, no, go not to Lethe neither twist 

Wolfsbane tight rooted, for its poisonous wine. 

J. Keats. 

The wolfsbane I should dread. 

T. Hood. 

Misanthropy, with visage sour, that sat 

And looked askance upon the ways of men, 
As might a wounded bear from out his den; 
Longing to eat those he was looking at. 

Anon. 

MARCH 21 


St. Benedict's thistle . Carduus Benediclus. 


Get you some of the distilled carduus Benedictua and lay to your heart. 

It is the only thing for a qualm. 

I meant plain holy thistle. 

Shakespeare. 

The Moving finger writes; and, having writ, 

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit 

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, 

Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it. 

Omar Khayyam. 

There’s wit in every flower, if you can gather it. 

Shirley. 


56 













MARCH 22 


Broome. cytisus scoparius. 

Humility. 

The broome’s tough roots his ladder made 


And hazel sapplings lent their aid: 

And thus an airy point he won. 

W. Scott. 

Land of broome, heath and shaggy wood. 

0 the broom, the yellow broom 

The ancient poet sung it 

And dear it is on summer days 

To lie at rest among it. 

W. Scott. 

Mary Hewitt. 

Humility that low sweet root 

From which all heavenly virtues shoot. 

T. Moore. 

MARCH 23 


Cuckoopint. arum maculatum. 

Zeal. 

0 columbine open your folded wrapper 
Where two twin turtles dwell. 

O cuckoopint tell me the purple clapper 

That hangs in your clear green bell. 

Jean Ingelow. 

And by the meadow touches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers. 


Tennyson. 

Who lent you love your mortal dower 

Of pensive thought and aspect pale 


Your melancholy sweet and frail 

As perfume of the cuckoo-flowers. 

Tennyson. 

The lords and ladies of the wood 

With shaking spear and riding hood. 

Walter Crane. 

For virtue’s self may too much zeal be had 

The worst of mad men is a saint run mad. Pope. 

MARCH 24 


Periwinkle. vinca major. Tender recollection. 

There lacked no floure to my dome 


Ne not so much as floure of broome 

Ne violet, ne eke perevink 

Ne floure none that men can on think. 

Chaucer. 

When March just ready to depart begins 
To soften into April. 


The periwinkle then 


In an hour’s sunshine lifts her azure blooms 
Beside the cottage door. 

W. C. Bryant. 

When I think of my own native land 


In a moment I seem to be there; 

But alas, recollection at hand 


Soon hurries us back to despair. 

Cowper. 


58 







\ 

— 

X 


59 






MARCH 25 


Lily. lilium candidum. 

Purity. 

Holy Mary at thy shrine 

Another pure flower blooms 

Welcome to thee with news divine 

The lily’s faint perfume. 

Lucy Hooper. 

The lilies say “Behold how we 

Preach without words, of purity.’' 

C. D. Rosetti. 

We are lilies fair 

The flowers of Virgin light 

Nature held us forth and said 

Lo! my thoughts of white. 

Leigh Hunt. 

I love the lily as the first of flowers. 

Montgomery. 

Let us always remember, that holiness does not consist in doing un¬ 
common things but in doing everything with purity of heart. 

Cardinal Manning. 

MARCH 26 


Dogwood. cornus sanguinea. Ami indifferent to you ? 

Upon the thick green grass 

The dogwood sheds its clusters white. 

Now the poplar rears his yellow spire 

The maple lights his funeral pyre 

And the dogwood burns like a bush of fire. 

Further I will not flatter you my love, 

That all I see in you is worthy love. 

A. B. Street. 

P. Cary. 

Shakespeare. 

MARCH 27 


Jonquil. narcissus. I desire a return of affection. 

From the moss, violet and jonquil peep. 

P. B. Shelly. 

There gay jonquils in foppish pride 

Stood by the painted lily’s side. 

Pringle. 

To be loved is all I need. 

And whom I love, I love indeed. 

Sam'l. T. Coleridge. 


60 



















MARCH 28 


Jinson iron and silver weeds 


Above the arching jinson weeds flare twos 
And twos of sallow yellow butterflies 

Like blooms of lorn primroses blowing loose 
When Autumn arise. 

J. W. Riley. 

The iron weed so straight and fine 

Above my head may rise, _ 

And all in glossy purple shine. 

A. Cary. 

Silver weed was there 

And in one calm grassy spot 

Starry blue forget-me-not. 

A. A. Proctor. 


Now ’tis spring, and weeds are shallow rooted; 

Suffer them now and they’ll o’er grow the garden, 

And check the herbs for want of husbandry. Shakespeare. 


MARCH 29 

Yellow violet. viola pubescens. Rural happiness. 

When beechen buds begin to swell 
And woods the blue bird’s warble knows 
The yellow violet’s modest bell 
Peeps from the last year’s leaves below. 

Bryant. 

God made the country, man the town 
What wonder then, that health and virtue, gifts 
That can make sweet the bitter draught 
That life holds out to all, should most abound 
And least be threatened in the fields and groves? 

Cowper. 


MARCH 30 

Indian Cress. cardamine rhomboidea. resignation. 

And put the cress flower around the spring. 

Jas. Hogg. 

To make my hermit home complete 
I brought clear water from the spring 
Praised in its own low' murmuring 
And cresses glossy white. 

E. B. Browning. 

As green amid thy current’s stress 
Floats the scarce rooted water cress. 

Bryant. 

Let us not burden our remembrances with 
A heaviness that’s gone. 

Shakespeare. 


62 






















MARCH 31 


Purple violet. viola cuculata. 

Faithfulness. 

A violet by mossy stone 

Half hidden from the eye 

Fair as a star when only one 

Is smiling in the sky. 

Wordsworth. 

Oh, it came o’er my ear like the sweet south 
That breathes upon a bank of violets 

Stealing and giving odour. 

Shakespeare. 

Violets that pour from every purple cup the glad perfume. 

John H. Merivale. 

Here the bright crocus and blue violet grow 
Here western winds on breathing roses blow. 

Pope. 

The violet there in soft May dew 

Came up as modest and as blue. 

Bryant. 

Violets dim. 

But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes 
Or Cytherea’s breath. 

) 

Shakespeare. 

Mary is the violet of humility, the lily of chastity, 
charity. 

and the rose of 

St. Bernard. 

Faithfulness in little things, fits one for heroism 
trials come. 

when the great 

L. M. Alcott. 


64 





85 




APRIL 1 


Wild heliotrope. phacelia grandiflora. 

Devotion. 

Leaves ungathered on the slope 

This passion breathing heliotrope. 

Mrs. 

M. E. Bradley. 

In the hushes of the midnight when the heliotrope grow strong 

With the dampness, I hear the music—hear a quiet plaintive song. 

T. B. Aldrich. 

Heliotropes with meekly lifted brow 

Say to me, “Go not yet." 

Julia C. R. Dorr. 

Devotion when lukewarm, is undevout; 

But when it glows its heat is struck to heaven. Young. 

APRIL 2 


Red daisy. Beauty unknown to possessor. 

Wee modest crimson-tipped flower 
Thou’s met me in an evil hour; 

For I maun crush amang the stoure 
Thy slender stem 

To spare thee now is past my power 
Thou bonnie gem. 

Burns. 

The roses are a regal troop 

And humble folks the daisies. 

T. B. Aldrich. 

Beauty is virtue’s image, truth’s best light,- 
Virtue and truth its representatives; 

’Tis the grand girdle, that with radiance bright, 

To both-in all that are,-their luster give. Jan Kinker. 

APRIL 3 


Liverwort. hepatica triloba. 

Confidence. 

The liverleaf puts forth her sister blooms 

Of fairest blue 

Bryant. 

When April awakens the blossom folk 
And blue birds are on the wing 
Hepatica muffled in downy cloak 
Hastens to greet the spring. 

Anna Pratt. 

Hepaticas in their furry coats. 

Lowell. 

Be thou as just and gracious unto me 

As I am confident and kind to thee 

Shakespeare. 


66 






67 







APRIL 4 

Crown Imperial. fritillaria imperialia. Ambition. Power. 

I take the rainbow as it fades away 

To mingle with the pure unshaded sky 

And melting in one drop its bright array 

I pour it in the crown imperial’s eye. Percival. 

And hollyhocks superbly tall 

Besides the crown imperial. Pringle. 

But ’tis a common proof, 

That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder, 

Whereto the climber upward turns his face; 

But when he once attains the upmost round 
He then unto the ladder turns nis back 
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degree 
By w'hich he did ascend. Shakespeare. 


APRIL 5 

Judas tree. eercis canadensis. Betrayed. 

Your Judas tree begins to shed those crimson buds of his. 

Bulyer Lytton. 

Where children drawing water 
Looked up and paused to see 
Amid the apple branches 
A purple judas tree. 

A. A. Proctor. 

As in Gethsemane He wept 
They, the faithless watchers slept; 

While for them He wept and prayed 

One denied and one betrayed. Anna C. Botta. 


APRIL 6 

Bluets. Houstonia coerulea. Contentment. 

The mimic waving of acres of 
Houstonic whose unnumerable flowers whiten and 
ripple before the eye . 

Emerson. 

What nothing earthly gives or can destroy 
The soul’s calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy 
Is virtue’s prize. Pope. 


68 

















APRIL 7 

Azalea. rhododendron synudiflorum. Romance. 

Azaleas-whitest of white 
White as the drifted snow 

Fresh fallen out of the night. Harriet Kimball. 

And in the woods a fragrance rare 
Of which azaleas filled the air 
And richly tangled overhead 

We see their blossoms sweet and red. Dora R. Goodale. 

The gorgeous pageantry of times gone by 
The tilt, the tournament and the vaulted hall 
Fades in its glory on the spirit’s eye 
And fancy’s bright and gay creation—all 
Sink into dust, when reason’s searching glance 
Unmarks the age of knighthood and romance. 

S. L. Fairfield. 


APRIL 8 

Almond. ampydalus pumlia. Hope. 

The almond blossoms.dance 

In the smile of southern France. J. R. Lowell. 

Blossom of the almond trees 
April’s gift to April’s bees. 

Birthday ornament of spring 

Flora’s fairest daughterling. Edwin Arnold. 

Hope is a lovers staff, walk hence with that, 

And manage it against despairing thoughts. Shakespeare. 

Hope the befriending points ever more upward to Heaven. 

Longfellow. 


APRIL 9 

Variegated tulip. Tulipa. Beautiful eyes. 

Ladies, like variegated tulip show 

*Tis to their change half their charms we owe. 

Pope. 

The varied tulips show so dazzling gay, 

Blushing in bright diversities of day. 

Pope. 

Fair charmer cease, nor make your voice’s prize 
A heart resigned the conquest of your eyes. 

Pope. 

For where is any author in the world 

Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye? Shakespeare. 


70 







71 






APRIL 10 

Mignonette. reseda odorata. Moral and intellectual beauty. 

And plucked at last some mignonette 
A simple thing that had no bloom 
And but a faint and far perfume. 

Mrs. M. E. Bradley. 

But tell her when I’m gone to train the rose bush that I set 
About the parlor window the box of mignonette. 

Tennyson. 

But a smooth and steadfast mind 
Gentle thoughts and calm desires 
Hearts with equal love combined 
Kindle never dying fires: 

Where these are not I despise 

Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes. Thos. Carew. 


APRIL 11 

Dandelion. taraxacum dens-leonis. Coquetry. 

Dear common flower that grows beside the way 

Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold 

First pledge of blithsome May. J. R. Lowell. 

’Twas no maiden that you sighed for 

’Twas the prairie dandelion. Longfellow. 

Their passing away is more spiritual than their bloom. 

H. W. Beecher. 

I cannot think love thrives by artifice 

Or can disguise its word or show its face 

I would not hide one portion of my heart 

Where I did give it and did feel ’twas right 

Nor fain a wish to make a wish that was 

Howe’er to keep it. J. S. Knowles. 


APRIL 12 

Hieracium. hieracium aurantiacum. Quick-sightedness. 

See hieracium’s various tribe 

Of plumy seal and radiant flowers 

That course of time their bloom describe 

And wake or sleep appointed hours. Mrs. C. Smith. 

Your hawkeyes are keen and bright 

Keen with triumph watching still 

To pierce me through with pointed light 

But often times they flash and glitter 

Like sunshine on a dancing rill. Tennyson. 


72 






73 







APRIL 13 


Venus' Car. 

Fly with me. 

Gay zephyr bore to my feet last night 

This curved and carved barouche of blue; 

I thought it at first a flower in flight; 

And so it will seem perhaps to you. 

But press on the foremost petal sweet, 

That rose tinted finger soft and light 

And two young doves will meet 

And spring from their couch to your startled sight. 

F. S. Osgood. 

“Unheeded flew the hours- 
For softly falls the foot of time 

That only treads on flowers.” 


APRIL 14 


Night blooming cereus. 


Then a power divine mysterious 

Opes the sweet night blooming cereus 

To perfume the dewy night; 

In its exquisite perfection 

Seeming like some glad reflection 

From the land of perfect light. Emma B. French. 

Flower of the night mysteriously awake 

When earth’s green tribes repose 

Why stealthful thus 

Comest thou to meet the stars unfolding soft 

Beneath their tranquil ray, thy peerless form. 

H. I. Johns. 

When darkness brings its weeping glories out 
And spreads its sighs like frankincense about 

Moore. 

APRIL 15 


A uricula. Primula. 

Avarice. 

Auriculas enriched 
With shining meal o’er their velvet leaves. 

Thomson. 

How quickly nature falls into revolt 
When gold becomes her object. 

Shakespeare. 

Pale avarice in vulgar minds 

Ambition’s place doth hold. 

C. C. Colton. 


74 


















APRIL 16 

Poinsettia. poinsettia pulcherrima. Brilliancy. 

The gay and glorious creatures, they neither “toil or spin” 

Yet lol what goodly raiment they’re all appareled in: 

No tears are on their beauty-but dewy gems more bright 
Than ever brow of eastern queen endiadem’d with light. 

Miss Bowles. 

His earnest and undazzled eye he keeps 
Fixed on the sun of truth and breathes his words 
As easily as eagles cleave the air; 

And never pauses till the height is won. 

Mrs. Hale. 


APRIL 17 

Spring beauty. Claytonia Virginica 

So bashful when I spied her 
So pretty, so ashamed! 

So hidden in her leaflets 
Lest anybody find 
So breathless till I passed her 
So helpless when I turned 
And bore her struggling, blushing 
Her simple haunts beyond. 

Miss Dickinson. 

And ’tis my faith that every flower 
Enjoys the air it breathes. 

Wm. Wordsworth. 


APRIL 18 

Edelweiss. Alpinum leontopodium. High courage. 

Breath of the mountain air 
Fresh from its fields of ice 
Breathes round thy form so fair 

Seems still to kiss thy hair, O dainty edelweiss. 

Lee S. Pratt. 

“The starlike flower that high in cloudland dwells.” 


May never was the month of love 
For May is full of flowers 
But rather April, wet by kind 
For love is full of showers. 

Robt. Southwell , 5. J 


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APRIL 19 

Pimpernal. anagallis arvensis. Change. 

Beneath the furrows lingers yet 
The scarlet pimpernal. 

E. Elliott. 

Closed is the pink eyed pimpernal 


’T will surely rain I see with sorrow 
Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow. 

Jenner. 

For the south wind tosses into my room 
A hint of summer-a vague perfume 
It has pilfered somewhere (I cannot tell 
Whether from pansy or pimpernel.) 

E. E. Rexford. 

More bitter far than all 

It was to know that love could change and die. 

A. A. Proctor . 


APRIL 20 

Johnnie-jump-up. 

Spring is here, summer’s near 
Spry is Johnnie-jump-up 
Twisting curl in a quirl- 
Dandy Johnnie-jump-up. 

M. Francis Brown 

And my lips still frame a bit of a sonnet 

For the blue Johnnie jump-ups in Grandmother’s bonnet. 

Maud M. Huey. 

The man who consecrates his hours 
By vig’rous efforts and an honest aim 
At once he draws the sting of life and death: 

He walks with nature and her paths are peace. 

Young. 


APRIL 21 

Red anomene. anemone fulgens. 

Growths of jasmine turn’d 
Their humid arms festooning tree to tree 
And at their roots thro’ his green grasses burn’d 
The red anemone. 

Tennyson. 

Love is the swiftest thing; it of itself can fly 
Up to the highest Heaven in the twinkling of an eye. 

Angelas Silelius. 


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APRIL 22 

Crowfoot. ranunculus. Ingratitude. 

The cowslips and the crowfoot are over all the hill. 

Tennyson. 


Call the crowfoot and the crocus 

Call the pale anemone 

Call the violet and the daisy 

Clothed with careful modesty. 

P. Cary. 

Mullein stocks with grey braids set 

Full of yellow; thistles spread; 

Violets purple near to jet; 

Crowfoot and the old man’s beard. 

A. Cary. 


Ingratitude, thou marble hearted fiend 
More hideous when thou showest thee in a child, 

Than in the monster. Shakespeare. 


APRIL 23 

Harebell. campanula rotundi flora . 

Let Albin bind her bonnet blue 

With heath and harebell dipped in dew . 

A foot more light, a step more true 

Ne’er from the heath flower dashed the dew 
E’en the slight harebell raised its head 

Elastic from her airy tread. 

Be still sad heart, and cease repining; 

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining 

Thy fate is the common fate of all 

Into each life some rain must fall 

Some days must be dark and dreary. 

Grief. 

Scott. 

Scott. 

Longfellow. 


Grief that does not speak 

Whispers the o’er fraught heart and bides it break. 



Shakespeare. 

APRIL 24 



Pea. Pisum. Everlasting pleasure. 


The pea is but a wanton witch, 

In too much haste to wed 

And clasps her rings on every hand. 

T. Hood. 


The gaudy butterfly in wanton round. 

Like a living pea flower skimm’d the ground. John Leyden. 

Long, long be my heart with such memories filled; 

Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled: 

You may break you may shatter the vase if you will 
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still. T. Moore . 


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81 






APRIL 25 


Tulip. tulipa Gesneriana. 

Hopeless love. 

The cedar and the mountain pine 

The willow on the fountain’s brim 

The tulip and the eglantine 

In reverence bow to Him. 

David Vedder. 

Whether that by youth or kind 

Will the faithful take 

Of me, and all that I can make; 

Or else by him my love deny 

And then I’ll study how to die. 

Shakespeare. 

APRIL 26 


Ladysmock . cardamine pratcnsis. 


Daisies pied and violets blue 

And ladysmocks all silver white 

And cuckoo buds of yellow hue 

Do paint the meadows with delight. 

Shakespeare. 

Brightly to them did thy snowy leaves 

For the Sainted Mary' shine 

As they twisted for her forehead vestal wreaths. 

Of the white buds cardamine. 

Lucy Hooper. 

Costly thy habit, as thy purse can buy 

But not expressed in fancy; rich not gaudy 

For the apparel oft proclaims the man. 

Shakespeare. 

APRIL 27 


Candytuft. Iberis amara. 

Indifference. 

Blue lavender and candytuft 

And pink and white sweet peas 

Your loyal subjects wave their heads 

In every passing breeze. 

Marian Douglass. 

His blade is bared; in him there is an air 

As deep, but far too tranquill for despaire 

A something of indifference, more than then 
Become the bravest, if they feel for men. 

Bryon. 


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APRIL 28 

White rose. Rosa alba. I am worthy of you. 

Her hair wound with white roses slept St. Cecily. 

Tennyson. 

A white rose delicate, on a tall bough and straight- 
Early comer, April comer, 

Never waiting for the summer. 

“For if I wait” said she 

“Till the time of roses be 

For the musk rose and the moss rose 

Royal red and maiden blush rose 

What glory then for me 

In such a company.” E. B. Browning. 

The lady is very well worthy. Shakespeare. 


APRIL 29 

Paw-paw. Carica Papaya. Impression. 

And brown is the pawpaw’s shade blooming cup 

In the wood near the sun loving maise. Wm. Fosdick. 

The daisy dressed in white 

The paw-paw flower in bloom 

And the violet sat by her lover the brook 

With her golden eyelids down. A. Cary. 

btill o’er these scenes my memory wakes, 

And fondly broods with miser care; 

Time but the impression deeper makes, 

As streames their channels deeper wear. Burns. 


APRIL 30 

Cowslips. Primula veris. Youthful beauty. 

The cowslips tall her pensioners be 

In their gold coats spotted we see. Shakespeare. 

In the dark wet meadows the cowslip lies. Sarah H. Whitman. 

But Oh, to smell the woodbine sweet 
I think of cowslips cups, but meet 

With very vile rebuffs. T. Hood. 

On her left breast 

A mole cinque spotted like the crimson drop 

I’ the bottom of a cowslip. Shakespeare. 

Her beauty guarded kept her beautiful. Bayard Taylor. 
Beauty’s tears are lovelier than her smile Campbell. 


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MAY 1 

Pansy Viola tricolor Tender and Pleasant Thoughts 

A rosemary odeur, comingled with pansies, 

With rue and the beautiful Puritan pansies. E. A. Poe 
There is pansies, thats for thoughts Shaks. 

If you seek a likeness to her eye 

Go to the pansy, friend, and find it there. Robt. Buchanan 
The pansy at my feet 

Doth the same tale repeat. IV. Wordsworth 

The little purple pansie brings 
Thoughts of the sweetest saddest things 

Mrs. M. E. Bradley . 

For she hath lived with heart and soul alive 
To all that make life beautiful and fair; 

Sweet thoughts, like honey bees, have made their hives 
Of her soft bosom cell, and cluster there 

Mrs. A. B. Welby. 


MAY 2 


Champac 


The maids of India blessed again to hold 
In her full lap the champac’s leaves of gold. 

A tear drop glistened 
Within his eyelids, like a spray 
From Eden’s fountain when it lies 
On the blue flower, which,—Bramins say 
Blooms nowhere than Paradise. 

O, Luxury, Thou curs’d by heaven’s decree, 

How ill exchanged are things like these for Thee? 
How do thy portions, with insidious joy 
Diffuse thy pleasures only to destroy. 


T. Moore. 


T. Moore 


Goldsmith . 


MAY 3 

Compass Plant. 

Look at this vigorous plant that lifts its head from the meadow, 
See how its leaves are turned to the north as true as the magnet; 
This is the compass flower that the finger of God has planted 
Here in the houseless wild to direct the traveller’s journey 
Over the sea like pathless limitless waste of the desert. 

Longfellow 

By a divine instinct, men’s minds mistrust 
Ensuing dangers; as by proof we see 
The waters swell before a boisterous storm, 

But leave it all to God 

Shaks. 


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MAY 4 

Stocks. cheirantlius incanus. Lasting beauty. 

And lavish stocks that scent the garden round. Thomson. 
Growing one’s choice words and fancies 
In odorous rhet’ric of carnations: 

Seeing how far one’s stocks will reach 

Taking due care one’s flowers of speech. Leigh Hunt. 

The fairest flowers of the season 

Are our carnations and streaked gillyflowers. 

Shakespeare. 

Bring hither the pink and purple collumbine 

With gillyflowers. Spencer . 

Fair is the gillyflower of garden sweet. Gay. 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Keats. 


MAY 5 

Apple Blossom. Pyrus malus. Preference. 

Apple blosoms falling sweet in a rosy rain. Wm. Sawyer. 

Upon the apple tree, where rosy buds 
Stood clustered, ready to burst forth in bloom 
The robin warbled forth his full clear note 
For hours and wearied not. 

Wm. C. Bryant. 

Ah, thine was neither pride nor scorn 
But in thy coy and virgin breast 
Dwelt preference, not of passion born 
The love that hath a holier rest. 

Mrs. Norton. 


MAY 6 

Barberry. myrica carolinesis. Sharpness. 

The barberry bush—the poor man’s bush. 

Caroline Gilman. 

From neath the »idling barberry stems 
In scarlet clusters o’er the gray stout wall 
The barberries lean in their autumnal air. 

T. B. Aldrich. 

Where the tangled barberry bushes 

Hang their tufts of crimson berries. Longfellow. 

Sometimes the arrowy sharpness of sorrow, 

Piercing life’s common calms, 

Smites hidden rocks of comfort, which to-morrow 
O’erflow in healing balm. Mrs. M. L. Dickinson. 


§8 























89 





















t 


MAY 7 


Love-in-a-mist. NigeUa. 


You kiss me and vow 

That you hate to be kissed 

Ah, truly I’m nothing 

But Love-in-a-mist. 

F. S. Osgood. 

Doth he not scatter abroad the “fitches’ and scatter the cummin? 

Isiah xxviii 

Charm strikes the sight but merit wins the soul. 

Pope. 

MAY 8 


Climbing fumitory. adlumia cirrhosa. 

Bluntness. 

The hidden rock where nature set 

The wind flower and the violet 

And the Mountain Fringe in hallows set. 

P. Cary. 

I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, 

Nor action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, 

To stir men’s blood: I only speak right on. 

Shakespeare. 

MAY 9 


Phlox. phloxdiadem. Our souls are united. 

Tall hollyhocks and purple phlox 

And time observing four o’clocks. 

Marian Douglass. 

There in the summer breezes wave 
Crimson phlox and moccasin flower. 

W. C. Bryant. 

Be thine the more refin’d delights 

Of love, that banishes control, 

When the fond heart with heart unites 
And soul’s in unison with soul. 

Cartwright. 


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L 


91 






MAY 10 


Peony. paeonia officinalis. Ostentation. 

At the roots 

Of peony bushes lay in rose-red heaps 

Or snowy fallen bloom. Jean Ingelow. 

On the wealth of globed peonies J. Keats. 

Great peonies in crimson pride 

And budding ones in green that hide. Walter Crane. 

There might ye see the piony spread wide. Cowper 

I envy none their pageantry and show. 

Young. 

A vile conceit in pompous words expressed 
Is like a clown in regal purple dressed. 

Pope. 


MAY 11 

Asphodel narthecium ossifragam. My regrets follow you to the grave. 


All paved with daisies and delicate bells 

As fair as the fabulous asphodels. P. B. Shelly. 

By those happy souls who dwell 

In yellow meade of asphodel or amaranthine bower. Pope. 

The meads of milk white asphodel 
They knew the poets tread. 

Bayard Taylor. 

Life is a waste of wearisome hours 
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns 
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers 
Is always the first to be touched by the thorns. 

Moore. 


MAY 12 

Trailing arbutus. epigaea repens. Thee only do I love. 

Pure and perfect sweet arbutus 

Twines her rosy tinted wreath. Elaine Goodale. 

‘Puritan flower,’ he said, ‘and the type of the puritan maiden 
Modest and simple and sweet, the very type of Priscilla.’ 

Longfellow. 

The shy little Mayflower weaves her nest. 

Sarah H. Whitman. 

Along the spicy sea coast, over the desolate down 
You will find the dainty Mayflower 

When you come to Plymouth town. Mrs. L. C. Moulton. 

I know not but whatever thou art 

Who’er thou art, were mine the spell 

To call Fate’s joys or blunt his dart 

There should not be one hand or heart 

But served or wished thee well. Fitz Greene Halleck. 


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93 












MAY 13 


White jessamine Jasminum. 

Amiability. 

And brides as delicate and fair 

As the white jessamined flowers they wear. 

Moore. 

But to see her was to love her 

Love but her and love for ever. 

Burns. 

A little bud of loveliness 

That never should grow old. 

R. H. Stoddard. 

MAY 14 


Agrimony. agrimonia eupatoria. 

Thankfulness . 

Only the herbs and simples of the wood 
Rue, cinquefoil gill vervain and agrimony. 

Emerson. 

Women are made as they themselves would choose 

Too proud to ask, too humble to refuse. 

Garth. 

Sweet is the breath of vernal shower, 

The bees collected treasure sweet, 

Sweet music’s melting fall, but sweeter yet 
The still small voice of gratitude. 

Gray. 

MAY 15 


Purple hyacinth. Hyacinthus Orientalis. 

Sorrow. 

Lovely and prized was their purple light 
And 'twas said in ancient story 

That their fairy bells rung out at night 

A peal to old England’s glory. 

Lucy Hooper. 

Shaded hyacinth alway 

Saphire queen of the mid-May. 

Keats. 

Thank God there is always a light whence to borrow 

When darkness is darkest and sorrow most sorrow. 

A. Cary. 

Gnarling sorrow has less power to bite 

The man that mocks at it and sets it light. 

Shakespeare. 


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25 




















MAY 16 

Musk rose. 

Charming. 

And mid-May’s eldest child 

The coming musk rose full of dewy wine 

And murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 

Keats. 

I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields 

A fresh blown musk rose: ’twas the first that threw 
Its sweets upon the summer. 

Keats. 

“And each inconstant breeze that blows 

Steals essence from the musky rose.” 


The tender thrill, the pitying tear, 

The generous purpose nobly dear 

The gentle look that rage disarms, 

Those are all immortal charms. 

Burns. 

MAY 17 


Rhodora. rhododendron rhodora. 

Majesty. 

In May when sea winds pierce our solitudes 

I found the fresh rhodora in the woods 

Spreading its leafless blooms in a deep nook 

To please the desert and the sluggish brook 

The purple petals, falling in the pool 

Made the black waters with their beauty gay. R . 

W. Emerson. 

Whom I crown with love is royal 

Matters not her blood or birth; 

She is the queen and I am loyal 

To the noblest of the earth. 

Neither place nor wealth nor title 

Lacks the many friendship owns; 

His distinction true and vital, 

Shines supreme o’er crowns and thrones. J. 

G. Holland. 

MAY 18 


Wistaria. Wistaria chinesis. Welcome to stranger. 

Quaint little maiden in far distant land, 

Where the white cherry tree blows; 

Languishing maiden by spicy breeze fanned 

Where the wistaria grows. Elizabeth Minot. 

Near the porch grows the broad catalpa tree 

And o’er it the grand wistaria 

Born to the purple of royalty. 

P. Cary. 

When friend like friend do friendly show 

Unto each other high or low 

What cheer increase of love doth grow 

What better cheer than they to know 

This is welcome. John Heywood. 


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MAY 19 

Monkshood. aconitum uncinatum Knighterrantry.. 

The monks-that wear the hood of blue. Walter Crane. 

Using such cunning as they did dispose 

The ruddy peony with the lighter rose 

The monkshood with the buglos and entwine, 

The white and blue and fleshlike columbine. Wm. Browne. 

A heart that worshiped in romance 
The spirit of the buried time 
And dreams of knight and spear and lance 
And ladye-love and minstrel rhyme; 

These had been: and I dreamed would be 

My joy whate’er my destiny. Fitz Greene Halleck. 


MAY 20 

Vervain. Verbena officinalis. Enchantment. 

A wreath of vervain heralds wear 

Amongst our garlands named. Drayton. 

Bring your garland and with reverence place 

The vervain on the altar. Ben Johnson. 

Veyne-healing vervain. Spencer. 

’Tis a note of enchantment, what ails her, she sees 
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees; 

A single small cottage, a nest like a dove’s 
The only one dwelling on earth that she loves; 

She looks and her heart is in Heaven. 

Wordsworth. 


MAY 21 

Bindweed. Convolvulus sepium. Humility. 

And climbing bindweed hangs on high 
His bells of beaten gold. 

Thos. Campbell. 

The cumbrous bindweed with its wreath and bells. 

Wordsworth. 

The fragile bindweed bells and byony rings. Tennyson. 

Behold 

How the blue bindweed doth itself enfold 
With honeysuckle and both these entwine 
Themselves with briony and jessamine. Ben Johnson. 

The first great test of a truly great man is his humility. Ruskin. 


98 










99 















MAY 22 


Lilac. Syringia Vulgaris. First emotion of love. 

Where alternate springs 

The lilac’s purple spire, 

Fast by its snowy sister’s side. 

L. 

Lilac robed 

In snow white innocence or purple pride. 

The blossomed lilacs counterfeit a blaze 

And seem to warm the air. 

II. Sigourney. 

Thomson. 

Longfellow. 

No, there’s nothing half so sweet in life 

As love’s young dream. 

Moore. 

First love will with the heart remain 
When its hopes are all gone by 

As frail rose blossoms still retain 

Their fragrance when they die. 

John Clarke. 

MAY 23 


Balm of Gilead. A myris Gileadensis. 

I am cured. 

While mystic winds from Gilead’s groves of balm, 

Wafted its sweet hosannas through the world. 

Sarah H. Whitman. 

Health is the vital principle of bliss. 

Thomson. 

Aromatic plants bestow 

No spicy fragrance where they grow: 

But crushed and trodden to the ground 
Diffuse their balmy sweets around. 

Goldsmith. 

MAY 24 


Rosemary. Rosamarinus. 

Remembrance. 

There’s rosemary that's for remembrance. 

Shakespeare. 

And threw into the well sweet rosemarys, 

And fragrant violets and paunces trim. 

Spencer. 

For you there’s rosamery and rue; these keep 
Seeming and savour all the winter long: 

Grace and remembrance be with you both. 

Shakespeare. 

The humble rosemary 

Whose sweets so thanklessly are shed 

To scent the desert and the dead. 

Moore. 

Rise to transports past expressing 
Sweeter by remembrance made. 

Goldsmith. 


100 









101 













MAY 25 


Herb Bennet. Geum Urbanum. 

Lowliness. 

The groundwort gay and the lady of May, 
In her petticoat pink and white. 

A. Cary. 

The crisp Ground flower 

Lifts its blue cup to catch the passing shower. 

T. B. Aldrich. 

The flower of sweetest smell 

Is shy and lowly. 

Wordsworth. 

MAY 26 


Heart's ease. Viola tricolor. 

Think of me. 

Along the wayside where we pass bloom free 

Gay plants of heart’s ease, more of saddening rue 

So is life mingled. J. R. Lowell. 

Every flower is sweet to me 

The pink, the daisy and sweet pea 

Heart’s ease and mignonette. 

Caroline May. 

If life’s a flower, I choose my own 

’Tis Love-in-idleness. Laman Blanchard. 

The bolt of Cupid fell 

.... Upon a little western flower 

Before milk white, now purple with love’s wound 

And maidens call it Love-in-idleness. Shakespeare. 

To the sessions of sweet silent thoughts 
Summon up remembrance of things past 

Shakespeare. 

MAY 27 


Buttercup. ranunculus repens. 

Riches. 

The buttercups across the fields 

Made sunshine rifts of splendor. 

D. M. Mulock. 

And one [ranunculus fluitans] whose feathery stem, and starry bloom 

Of glossy yellow, wafted in the flow, 

Floats, like a sleeping naiad on the wave. Percival. 

Riches, the wisest monarch sings 

Make pinions for themselves to fly; 

They fly like bats on parchment wings, 
And geese their silver plumes supply. 

Swift. 

To whom can riches give repute or trust 
Content or pleasure, but the good or just? 

Pope. 


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103 






MAY 28 


Night blooming jessamine. Transient joy. 

Many a perfume breathed 

From plants that wake when others sleep 
From timid jasmine buds that keep 

Their odour to themselves all day 

But when the sunlight dies away 

Let the delicious secrets out 

To every breeze that roams about. 

T. Moore. 

Oh, my sad heart long abandoned by pleasure, 

Why did I dote on a fast fading pleasure? 

Tears like the rain drops may fall without measure 

But rapture and beauty they cannot recall. T. Campbell. 

MAY 29 


Locust trees. Ceralonia Silequa. Affection beyond the grave. 

Hedges of wild blackberries 

Pears, and honey-locusts tall, 

Spicewood, and good apple trees, 

Well enough we know them all. 

A. Cary. 

Honey and locusts were the food, 

Where on the Baptist in the wilderness 

Fed. 

Dante. 

We pour out our affections with our blood, 

And with our blood’s affections fill our lives. 

Ovid. 

MAY 30 


Shadbush. Amelanchier oblongifolia. 


The shad bush white with flowers 
Brightened the glens. 

Bryant. 

Trees and flowers and streams 

Are social and benevolent and he 

Who oft communeth in their language pure 
Roaming among them at the cool of day 

Shall find like him who Eden’s garden dressed 
His Maker there to teach his listening heart. 

Mrs. 

Sigourney. 


104 






105 


















Hawthorne. 


MAY 31 

Crataegus Oxyacantha. Hope. 

Here eglantine embalm’d the air 

Hawthorne and hazel mingled there. Scott. 

Every shepherd tells his tale 

Under the hawthorne in the dale. T. Campbell. 

From the forced fissues of the naked rock 

The yew tree bursts 

Beneath its dark green boughs 

’Mid which the Maythorne blends its blossoms white. 

S. T. Coleridge . 

Auspicious hope, in thy sweet garden grow 
Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe. 

T. Campbell. 







JUNE 1 


Wild rose. Simplicity. 

Does not remembrance darken on the brow 

When the wild rose a richer fragrance flings? Mrs. Norton. 

The five leaved wild rose dead within the hour. T. B. Aldrich. 

The wild roses of the promontory 

Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed 

Their petals of pale red. Longfellow. 

A wild rose born within a modest glen 

And sheltered by the leaves of thorny bushes 

Drooped being commended to the eye of man 

And died of blushes. A. Cary. 

Simplicity must be in the intention. Simplicity aims at God. 

Thomas a Kempis. 


JUNE 2 

Daily Rose. That smile I would aspire to. 

The queenly rose that blossoms for a day. 

Caroline M. Sayer. 

Oh, nature though blessed and bright are thy rays 

O’er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown 

Yet faint are they all to the luster that plays 

In a smile from the heart that is dearly our own. Moore. 

These smiles unto the moodiest mind 
Their own pure joys impart; 

Their sunshine leaves a glow behind 

That lightens o’er the heart. Lord Byron. 


JUNE 3 

Hundred leaves rose. Rose centifolia. Pride. 

That joyous time when pleasures pour 
Profusely round and in their shower 
Hearts open like the season’s rose— 

The floweret of a hundred leaves 
Expanding while the dew-fall flows 

And every leaf its balm receives. Moore. 

Petal on petal opening wide 

My being into beauty flows 

Hundred leaved and damasked dyed 

Yet nothing, nothing but a rose. Mrs. H. P. Spofford. 

Of all the causes which conspire to blind 

Man's erring judgment and misguide the mind 

What weak head with strongest bias rules 

Is pride the never failing vice of fools. Pope. 


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JUNE 4 

Rose of Paestuni. Call me not beautiful. 

The lovely rose 

That on the mountain of Pieria, blows. Sappo. 

The Paestan rose unfolds 
Her bud more lovely, near the foetid leek, 

[Crest of stout Britons] and enchanes thence 

The price of her celestial scent. Philips. 

Ah, fair as the sea flower close to her growing 
How light was the heart till love’s witchery came, 

Like the wind of the south o’er a summer lute blowing 
And hushed all its music and withered its frame. Moore. 


JUNE 5 

China rose. Grace. 

‘I’ve a call to make’ said the rich moss rose 
At the house of a lady fair; 

Cousin China-rose, if you’ll go with me 

I’ll introduce you there’. L. H. Sigourney. 

The gently budding rose, quoth she, behold 

That first scant peeping forth with virgin beams 

Half ope, half shut her beauties doth unfold 

In their clear leaves and less seen, fairer seems. Tasso. 

There is a garden in her face 

Where roses and white lilies blow 

A heavenly paradise is that place 

Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow. Richard Allison. 


JUNE 6 

Yellow rose. Rose lutea. Decrease of love. 

The yellow rose leaves falling down 
Pay golden toll to passing June. 

Ben'j. F. Taylor. 

Thou w r ould’st be loved?-then let thy heart 
From its present pathway part not 
Being everything which thou art: 

Be nothing which thou art not. 

Edgar A. Poe. 

Love is love forever more. 

Tennyson. 


no 














JUNE 7 


Herb Robert. Geranium Robertinum. I expect a meeting. 

There, wild geranium with its wolly stem, 
And aromatic breath perfumes the glade. 

Mrs. Norton. 

0 mickle is the powerful grace that lies 

In herbs, plants, stones and their true qualities. 

Shakespeare. 

I swear 

By the simplicity of Venus’ doves 

By which knitteth souls, and prospers loves 
In the same place thou hast appointed me 
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee. 

Shakespeare. 

JUNE 8 

Rose Champion. Only deserve my love. 

Let the dainty rose a while 

Her bashful fragrance hide 

Rend not her silken veil too soon 

But leave her in her own sweet noon 

To flourish and abide. 

Keble. 

Honor maintaining, 

Meanness disdaining, 

Still entertaining 

Engaging and new; 

Neat, but not finical; 

Sage but not cynical 

Never tyranical 

But ever true. Henry Fielding. 

JUNE 9 

Dog Rose. Rose Canina. Pleasure and pain. 

’Twas kin’ kingdom-come to look 

On such a blessed creature 

A dog rose blushing to a brook 

Ain’t modester or sweeter. 

J. R. Lowell . 

The dog rose glistening with the dew of morn. 

Mrs. Norton . 

Ah, how sweet it is to love 

Ah, how gay is young desire; 

And what pleasing pains we prove, 
When we first approach love’s fire: 

Pains of love are sweeter far 

Than all other pleasures are. 

John Dryden. 


112 







113 






JUNE 10 


White Daisy. Beilis perennis. 

Innocence. 

The daisy’s for simplicity and unaffected air. Burns. 

And Chaucer’s daisy small and sweet 

Si douce est la Margarete. 

Walter Crane. 

A daisy? Ah, bring childhood’s flower, the half blown daisy bring. 


E. Elliott. 

Small service is true service while it lasts. 
The daisy by the shadow that it casts 
Protects the lingering dew-drops from the 

sun. 

Wordsworth. 

Innocence shall make false accusation blush. 

Shakespeare. 

JUNE 11 


Garland of Roses. 

Reward of virtue. 

"For Rose garland is on St. Barnebes Day.” 

When the sweet clouds of even 
Are wreathing in Heaven 

Their garland of roses. 

Robert C. Sands. 

And home they hasten the postes to dight 
And all the Kirk pillours eare daylight, 
With hawthorne buds and sweet eglantine 
And girlends of Roses and soppes in wine. 

Spencer. 

The soul’s calm sunshine and the heart felt joy is virtue’s prize. 

Pope. 

JUNE 12 


Rose of Sharon. Hibiscus Syriacus 


No wreath is bright, no garland fair, 
Unless sweet Sharon’s Rose be there. 

Anon. 

The Rose of Sharon flings 

Her fragrance on the gale. 

Jessie McCartee. 

And Sharon’s roses still as sweetly bloom 

As when the apostles in the days gone by 

Rolled back the shadows from the dreary tomb 

And brought to light, Life’s immortality. A. Cary. 

All thoughts, all passions, all delights 
Whatever stirs this mortal shame 

All are but ministers of love 

And feed his sacred flame. 

S. T. Coleridge. 


114 







115 








JUNE 13 

Cinnamon Rose. 

Neighbor Cinnamon prated of household and care 
How she seldom went out e’en to breathe the fresh air; 

There were so many young ones and servants to stray 
And the thorns grew so fast if her eye was away. 

From Flora's Party . 

Just when the red June roses blow 
She gave me one a year ago; 

A rose whose crimson breath revealed 

The secret that its heart concealed. A. A. Proctor. 

How sweet is love itself possessed 

When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy. Shake speare. 


JUNE 14 

Basil. Ocimum Basilicum. Hatred. 


Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me, 

Sweet Basil and mignonette? Shelly 

Off to the bank where the wild thyme blows 
And the fragrant basil is growing. 

Frances H. Greene. 

Love is sunshine, hate is shadow 
Life is checkered shade and sunshine. 

Longfellow. 


JUNE 15 

Multiflora Rose. Grace. Beauty. 

Around the door the honeysuckle climbs 
And multa-flora spreads her countless roses. 

Rufus Dawes. 

The rose is fairest when ’tis budding new, 

And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears 
The rose is sweetest washed with morning dew, 

And love is loveliest when embalm’d in tears. 

Scott. 

Each Morn a thousand Roses brings you say; 

Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? 

And this first summer month that brings the rose 

Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away. Omar Khayyam. 


116 







117 










JUNE 16 

Moss Rose. Superior merit. 

Her seymar was the lily flower 
And her cheek a moss rose in a shower. 

Jas. Hogg. 

In this cold world I never found 

But one to whom my heart was dear 

But thousand chords of love had bound 

Her being to this changeful sphere. P. Cary. 

Yes I love my moss rose for it ne’er had a thorn 
’Tis the type of life’s pleasures unmixed with its woes; 

’Tis more gay and more bright than the opening morn- 

Yes all things must yield to my pretty moss rose. Anon. 

Without thorn, the rose. Milton. 


JUNE 17 

Rosebud. Young girl. 

For what the rosebud seeks tell not the rose 

The meaning foretold by the boy the man cannot disclose. 

Margaret Fuller. 

O, that the rosebud that graces yon island 

Were wreathed in a garland around him to twine. Scott. 

It was a mere wild rose bud 

Quite sallow now and dry 

Yet there’s something wondrous in it 

Some gleams of days gone by. J. R. Lowell. 

I know a little damsel as light of foot as the air 

And with smiles as gay as the sun of May 

And clouds of golden hair. A. Cary. 


JUNE 18 

Japan Rose. Camellia Japonica. Beauty is your only attraction. 

Of colour changing from the splendid rose 
To the pale violets dejected hue. 

A kensidi. 

Camellia, with its lustrous white 
And glossy leaves of emerald hue. 

5. B. Parsons. 

Amoret, my lovely foe 
Tell me where thy strength doth lie 
Where the power that charms us so 
In thy soul or in thy eye. 

Waller. 


118 







119 






JUNE 19 


Bridal Rose. 

Happy love. 

Thou virgin rose, whose opening leaves so fair 

The dawn has nourished with her balmy dews; 

While softest whispers of the morning air 

Call’d forth the blushes of thy vermeil hues. 

That cautious hand which croft thy youthful pride 

Transplants thy honors, where from hurt secure 

Stript of each thorn offensive to thy side 

Thy nobler part alone shall bloom mature. Metastasio. 

They were gathered for a bridal 

I knew it by their hue 

Fair as the summer moonlight 

Upon the sleeping dew. S. and P. Smith. 

JUNE 20 

Sweetbrier Rose. Rosa rubiginosa. 

Sympathy . 

The wild brier rose of pale and bashful hue. 

J. Ley don. 

The sweet brier rose, the wayside rose 

Still spreads its fragrant arms. 

Caroline Gilman. 

The brier rose fell in streamers green. 

Scott. 

And if my eyes all flowers but one must lose 

Our wild sweet brier would be the one to choose. 

A. Cary. 

Kindness by secret sympathy is tried 

For noble souls in nature are allied. 

Dryden. 

JUNE 21 

York and Lancaster Roses. 

War. 

Let Merry England proudly rear 

Her blended roses bought so dear. 

Scott. 

Between the red rose and the white 

A thousand souls to death and deadly night. 

Shakespeare. 

If this fair rose offend thy sight 

Placed in thy bosom bare 

’Twill blush to find itself less white 

And turn Lancastrian there. 

But if thy ruby lips it spy 

As kiss thou may’st deign 

With envy pale ’twill lose its dye 

And Yorkish turn again. 

Anon. 


120 





* 




121 






JUNE 22 

White rose withered. Transient impressions. 

The bonny white rose it is withering and ‘a’. 

Allen Cunningham. 

Her robe ungirt from clasp to hem, 

No wrought flowers did adorn, 

But a white rose of Mary’s gift 
For service meekly worn. 

Dante. G. Rosetti. 

Ever left thy fancy roam 
Pleasure never is at home 
At a wind sweet pleasure melteth 
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. 

Keats. 


JUNE 23 

St. John's wort. Hypericum perforatum. Superstition. 

I must gather the mystic St. John’s wort tonight 
The wonderful herb whose leaf will decide 
If the coming year will make me a bride. 

From the German. 

Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm 
Of flowers like flies clothing its slender rods 
That scarce a leaf appear. 

Cowper. 

I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted. 

Shakespeare. 

The master of superstition is the people and in all superstition 
wise men follow fools. Bacon. 


JUNE 24 

Lychins. Lychinis vesperina. Religious enthusiasm * 

And thou of faithful memory 
St. John, thou shining light, 

Beams not a burning torch for thee 
The scarlet lychins bright? 

Lucy Hooper. 

No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest 
Till half mankind were like himself possessed. 

Cowper. 


122 










JUNE 25 


Sweet William. Dianthus barbartus. 

Gallantry. 

With pinks, sweet williams that far off the eye 

Could not the manner of their mixture spy. 

Wm. Browne. 

Sweet william small, has form and aspect bright 

Like that sweet flower that yields great Jove delight. 

Cowley. 

He had that grace so rare in every clime 
Or being without alloy of fop or beau 

A finished gentleman from top to toe. 

Byron. 

JUNE 26 


Moss rose bud. Confession of love. 

Mossy rose on mossy stone 

Flowering ’mid the ruins lone 

I have learnt beholding thee 

Youth and age may well agree. 

John Sterling. 

The vow should bind with maiden’s sighs 
That maiden’s lips have spoken- 
But that which looks from maiden’s eyes 
Should last of all be broken. 

Gerald Griffen. 

JUNE 27 

Woodbine. Lonicera caprifolium. 

Fraternal love. 

Quite over canopied with lush woodbine 
With sweet musk rose and with eglantine. 

Shakespeare. 

The woodbine, of velvet leaves and bugle blooms 

divine. Keats. 

The pleached bower 

Where honeysuckles ripen’d by the sun 

Forbid the sun to enter like favorites 

Made proud by princes that advance their pride 

Against that power that bred it. Shakespeare. 

Plead it to her 

With all the strength and hints of eloquence 

Fraternal love and friendship can inspire. Addison. 


124 






125 






JUNE 28 

Damask Rose. Bashful love. 

To a faint damask mouth, 

To slumbery pont: just as the morning south 
Disparts a dew-lipp’d rose 

Keats. 

A perfume 

Of damask roses in full bloom 

Making a garden of the room. 

Longfelllovu. 

Unto the ground she cast her modest eye 

And, ever and anon, with rosy red, 

The bashful blush her snowy cheeks did dye. 

Spencer. 

JUNE 29 

Cherokee Rose. Love is dangerous. 

Thy one white leaf is open to the sky 

And o’er thy heart swift lights and shadows pass- 
The wooing winds seem loath to wander by 

Jealous of the sunshine and the summer grass 
Thy sylvan loveliness is pure and strong 

For thou art bright and yet not over bold- 
Like a young maid apart from fashion’s throng 

A virgin dowered with a heart of gold. 

Anon. 

Yes, love is but a dangerous guest 

For hearts as young as thine 

Where youth’s unshadow’d joys should rest 
Life’s spring time fancies shine. F. S. 

Osgood. 

JUNE 30 

Roses 

How wide the leaves 
Extended to the utmost of this rose 

.which in bright expansiveness 

Lays forth its gradual blooming redolent 
of praise to the never wintering sun. 

Beauty. 

Dante. 

Ah, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem 

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give: 

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem 

For that sweet odour which doth in it live. 

Shakespeare. 

If Jove would give the leafy bowers 

A queen for all their worlds of flowers 

The rose would be the choice of Jove 

And blush the queen of every grove. 

Moore. 


126 












JULY 1 


Gelsemiutn False jasatnine. Grace. Eloquence. 

Here the bands of ivy twine 

Here the bells of yellow shine 

On the flowering gelsemine 

Round the woven trellise growing. 

Percival. 

Who hath not own’d with rapture smitten frame 

The power of grace, the magic of a name. 

Campbell. 

JULY 2 

White water lily. Nymphaea alba. 

Eloquence. 

Mark where transparent waters glide 

Soft flowing o’er the tranquil bed; 

There cradled on the dimpling tide, 

Nymphaea rests her lovely head. Charlotte Smith. 

Eloquence that charms and burns 

Startles, sooths and wins by turns. 

J. H. Clinch. 

Every tongue that speaks 

But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence. 

Shakespeare. 

Fairest of Flora’s lovely daughters 

That bloom by stilly running waters 

Fair lily thou a type must be 

Of virgin love and purity 

Faber. 

JULY 3 

Mallow. Malva moscliata. 

Sweetness. 

Through reedy ferns its sluggish current flows 
Where lilacs grew and purple blossomed mallows. 

Geo. Arnold. 

Emblem of meekness, Oh who doth not hallow 

The bright green leaf of the musk scented mallow. 

J. S. Henslow. 

Alas, alas, when in a garden fair 

Mallows crisp, dill or parsley yields to fate 
These with another year regerminate. 

Moschus. 

The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet 

Though to itself it only live or die 

But if that flower with base infection meet 

The basest weed out braves its dignity; 

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds 

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. Shakespeare. 


128 






129 






JULY 4 


American Elm. Ulmus Americana. 

Patriotism. 

Enormous elm-tree boles did stoop and lean 

Upon the dusky bushwood underneath 

Their broad curved branches fledged with clearest green 

New from its silken sheath. 

Tennyson. 

Through the sheltering elms 

The hawthorne hedge row and the laughing wood 

Beneath whose boughs their humble cottage stood. 

John Leydon. 

Breathes there a man with soul so dead 
That never to himself hath said 

This is my own, my native land. 

Scott. 

JULY 5 


Bleeding Heart. 


The woodbine at the cottage door 
Sweet memories may impart 

But for a spirit crushed and sore 

Oh, bring the bleeding heart. 

Helen W. Clark 

The very flowers that bend and meet 
In sweeting others grow more sweet. 

0. W. Holmes. 

Friendship with the flowers some noble 

thoughts beget. 


Edward Youl. 

JULY 6 

Morning glories. Convoloulus. 

Affeciion. 

The morning glory’s blossoming 

Will soon be coming round; 

We see their rows of heart shaped leaves 

Upspringing from the ground, Maria White Lowell. 

Around green roots the yellow stalks I see 

Pale blue convoloulus in tendrils creep. Matthew Arnold. 

Convoloulus in streaked vases flush 

The creeper mellowing for an autumn blush. J. Keats. 

Lets its pure flame 

From virtue flow 

And love can never fail 

To warm another’s bosom. 

Dante . 


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JULY 7 

Nasturtiums. Tropaelum majus. Ostentation. 

Quaint blossom with the old fantastic name 
By jester christened at some ancient feast 

Helen Hunt Jackson. 

When Flora had finished her labors 

And all the flowers were made 

She still had left on her palette 

Many a brilliant shade 

So she gathered them all together 

And added a drop of dew 

And a breeze from the sunny spiceland 

Then the nasturtium grew. 

Bessie Bellman. 


JULY 8 

Speedwell. Veronica chamaedrys. Feminine fidelity. 

And fairy speedwell, like some sapphire gem 
Lighted with purple sparks the hedge-rows made. 

Mrs. Norton. 

Bring orchids, bring the foxglove spire 
The little speedwell’s darling blue 
Deep tulips dashed with fiery dew 
Laburnums drooping wells of fire. 

Tennyson. 

No woman’s head so keen to work its will 
But that the woman’s heart is mistress still. 

E. C. Steadman. 


JULY 9 

German Iris. Iris Pseud a corns. Message. 

Thou art the iris fair among the fairest 

Who armed with golden rod 

And winged with celestial azure bearest 

The message of some god. Longfellow. 

The yellow flags would stand 

Up to their chins in water. Jean Ingelow. 

And nearer to the river’s trembling edge 

There grew broad flag flowers purple prankt with white. 

Shelly. 

This is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we 
should love one another. Bible. 


132 












JULY 10 


Day lily . 

Coquetty. 

0 sweet day lily 

You seem so silly 

To bloom for just one day 

Alice M. Douglass. 

Not for the milk white lilies 

That lead from the fragrant hedge 
Coquetting all day with the sunbeams, 
And stealing their golden edge. 

A. Cary. 

The vain coquette each suit disdains 

And glories in her lover’s pains 

With age she fades-each lover flies 
Contemn’d, forlorn, she pines and dies. 

Gay. 

JULY 11 

Garden Daisy. I partake 

your sentiment. 

And nature’s love of thee partake 

Her much loved daisy. 

Wordsworth. 

The grassy ground with dainty daisies dight. 

Spencer. 

The daisy is so sweet, the daisy is so sweet. 

Dryden. 

Such love’s a cowslip ball to fling 

A moment’s pretty pastime 

I give all me if anything 

The first time and the last time. 

E. B. Browning. 

JULY 12 


Scarlet Geranium. Pelargonium. 

Deceit. 

Geranium boasts 

Her crimson honours. 

Cowper. 

Geranium, geranium, with brave and steadfast eyes 

Ye face the darkest day that comes 

And bluest summer skies 

For shade and shine are one to thee 

For come what may your blooms are free. 

Dart Fairthorne. 

Geranium in the cultured round 

Than thee no flower more prized is found. 

J. S. Henslow. 

To me the meanest flower that blows can give 

Thoughts that too often lie too deep for tears. Wordsioorth. 


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135 


■ r. ... m 






JULY 13 

Bugloss. Aschusa. Falsehood. 

Here nature’s hues all harmonize-fields white 
With alasum or blue with buglos, banks 
Of glossy fennel, blent tulip with wild 
And sunflowers, like a garment pranked with gold. 

Campbell. 

Briefly die their joys 

That place them on the truth of girls and boys. 

Shakespeare. 


JULY 14 

Fleur de lys. Iris. Flame. 

I tracked his wanderings o’er the watery way 
Roamed round the Aleutian isles in waking dreams 
Or plucked the fleur de lys by Jesse’s streams. 

Thos. Campbell. 

The fleur de luce with its triple bell smiles 
Till the days of the springtime are ended: 

’Tis sacred to friendship and sacred to love 

The emblem of union in heaven above. Sam'l. F. Smith. 

Love knows no measure, but is inflamed above all measure. 
When frightened is not disturbed, but like a lively flame and a torch 
on fire it mounts upward and securely passes through all opposition. 

Thomas Kempis. 


JULY 15 

Kalmia. Treachery. 

And clings to fern and corpsewood set 
Along the grass and dewy steeps; 

Clings to the fragrant kalmia, clings, 

To precipices fringed with grass. 

Bryant. 

Desire in rapture gazed awhile 

And saw the treacherous goddess smile. 

Swift. 

Thou hast come not to cherish 
To win but my heart 
It is thine till it perish; 

Now trifler depart. F. S. Osgood. 


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JULY 16 

Marigold. Calendula. Grief. 

They said her cheek of youth was beautiful 

Till withering sorrow blanched the white rose there Maturin. 


Or like October’s faded marigolds 

Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds. Keats. 


Corn marigold of golden hue. Walter Crane. 

Open fresh your round of starry folds 
Ye ardent marigolds 
Dry up the moisture of your golden lids 
For great Apollo bids. Keats. 

Some grief shows much of love 

But much of grief still some want of wit. Shakespeare. 


JULY 17 

Sweet Pea. Lathyrus. Departure. 

Here are sweet peas on tip toe for a flight 
With wings of gentle flushe ’er delicate white 
And taper fingers catching at all things 
To bind them all about with tiny rings. 

Keats. 


Beatiful bright winged pea 

Ah, how I envied thee. Edwin Arnold. 

My thoughts are like those gentle sounds, dear love 

By day shut up in their own still recess 

They wait for dews on earth, for stars above 

Then to break out their soul of tenderness 

Leave me not yet. Mrs. Hemans. 


JULY 18 

Rushes. Vilva. Docility. 

In the clear brook are springing water cresses 
And pale green rushes and fair nameless flowers. 

Julia H. Scott. 

An accent very low 

In blandishment, but a most silver flow 

Of subtle-paced counsel in distress 

Right to the heart and brain though undescried 

Winning its way with extreme gentleness 

Through all the outworks of suspicious pride. 

Tennyson. 


138 









139 






JULY 19 

Yellow water lily. Nuphar luteum. 

Eloquence. 

I heard the raptured nightingale 

Tell from yon ebony grove his tale 

Of jealousy and love 

It stayed the night wind in his blowing 

And lulled the lily to her rest 

Upon the Cherwell’s heaving breast. 

Faber. 

Like a yellow leaf in autumn, like a yellow water lily. 

Longfellow. 

And this our life exempt from public haunts 
Finds tongues in trees. 

Shakespeare. 

JULY 20 


Lady slippers. Impatiens balsam. Capricious beauty. 

I like not lady slippers, 

Nor yet the sweet pea blossom 

Nor yet the flaky roses 

Red or white as snow. 

T. B. Aldrich. 

How sweet are looks that ladies bend 
On whom their favors fall. 

Tennyson. 

Or light or dark or short or tall 

She sets a spring to snare them all; 

All’s one to her—above her fan 

She’d make sweet eyes at Caliban. 

T. B. Aldrich. 

JULY 21 


Peach blossom. Amygdalus Persica. I am your captive. 

The violet stars the meadows 

The rose buds fringe the door 

And over the grassy orchard 

The pink white blossoms pour 

Wm. Winter. 

The peach is the emblem of beauty. 

Longfellow. 

Whereso’er I am, below, or else above you, 

Whereso’er you are, my heart shall truly love you. 

Joshua Sylvester. 

---- -- 


140 







141 






JULY 22 

Tiger lily. Lilium tigrinum. 

I like the chaliced lilies 
The heavy Easter lilies 
The gorgous tiger lilies 
That in our garden grew. 


Pride. 


T. B. Aldrich. 


If thou be one whose heart the holy form 
Of young imagination hath kept pure, 

Stranger, henceforth be warned, and know that pride 
Howe’er disguised in its own majesty 
Is littleness. 

Wordsworth. 


JULY 23 

Red Pink. Dianthus. Woman's love. 

And I will put the pink the emblem of my dear 

For she’s the pink o’ womankind and blooms without a peer. 

Burns. 

The fresh May pinks and half blown lilacs tender 
Their grateful homage to the skies above. 

Julia II. Street. 

And the beauteous pink 
I would not slight 

Pride of the gardener’s leisure. Goethe. 

Better than houses and lands, the gift of a woman’s affection. 

Longfellow. 

Love bides longest in a woman’s heart. J. R. Lowell. 


JULY 24 

Wild Lupine. Lupinus perennis. Imagination. 

Thou shall gather from buds of the oriole’s hue, 

From the saffron orchis and the lupin blue. 

C. F. Hoffman. 

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet 
Are of imagination all compact: 

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold; 

That is the madman. The lover all as frantic, 

Sees Helen’s beauty in the brow of Egypt. 

The poet’s eye in frenzy rolling 

Doth glance from Heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. 

Shakespeare. 


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I 

















--— 

JULY 25 


Birch. Betula alba. 

Meekness. 

Where got you that joup of the lily sheen 
That bonny snood of the birk so green? 

James Hogg. 

A taunt in friendship 

Meekness’s happiest condesension. 

Leigh Hunt. 

Fond Fathers. 

Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch 

Only to strike it in their children’s sight 

For terror, not to use, in time the rod 

Becomes more mocked than feared. 

Shakespeare. 

JULY 26 


Camomile. Matrioria Chamomilla. Energy in adversity. 

For though the camomile the more it is trodden on, the faster it 
grows, yet youth more it is wasted the sooner it wears. 

Shakespeare. 

Fresh costmarie, and breathful camomile. 

Spencer. 

’Gainst greater force grows greater victory 

As camomile the more you tread it down 

The more it springs. 

Du Bartas. 

Sweet are the uses of adversity 

Which like a toad ugly and venomous 

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. 

Shakespeare. 

JULY 27 


Sweet Alyssum. Koniga Maritima. Worth beyond beauty . 

In front of the door 

A modest flowerbed thickly sown 

With sweet alyssum and columbine. 

Longfellow. 

Who could blame that I loved that face 

Ere my eye could twice explore her 

Yet it is for the fairy intelligence there 

And her warm, warm heart that I adore her. 


Charles Wolfe. 


144 

















JULY 28 


Red Catchfiy. Silene Cucubalus. 

Youthful love. 

Aught unsavory or unclean 

Hath my insect never seen, 

But violets and bilberries 

Maple sap and daffodils 

Clover, catchfiy, adder’s tongue 
And brier roses dwelt among. 

R, W. Emerson. 

Then wise men pull your roses yet unblown, 
Loves hates the too ripe fruit that falls alone. 


Beaumont and Fletcher. 

JULY 29 


Moss. 

Maternal love. 

And Europe’s violets faintly sweet 
Purpled the moss bed at its feet. 

Felicia Hemans. 

Lips that have lulled me with your strain 
Eyes that have watched my sleep 

Will earth give love like yours again 
Sweet mother let me weep. 

Felicia Hemans. 

JULY 30 


Bridewort. 


Of thoughts of flames forget-me-nots 
Bridewort—in short the whole blest lot 

Of vouchers for a life long kiss 

And literally breathing bliss. 

Leigh Hunt’ 

The flowers that grace this shaded spot 
Low lovely and obscure 

Are like the joys your friendship brought 
Unboastcd sweet and pure. 

Gerald Griffen. 


146 











JULY 31 

Mullein. Verbascum Thapeus. Good nature . 

The braids of the mullein is yellow with gems. 

Alfred B. Street. 

Mullein stocks, with gray braids set full of yellow. 

A. Cary. 

As genial as sunshine 
Like warmth to impart, 

Is a good natured word 
From a good natured heart. 

A non. 


148 




149 




AUGUST 1 


Saffron. Crocus. 

Excess is dangerous 

And the saffron flower 

Clear as the flame of sacrifice breaks out. 

Jean Ingelow. 

The busy hive 

On Bela’s hills is less alive 

When saffron buds are full in flower 

Than looked the valley in that hour. 

Moor. 

Can Timolus’ head 

Vie with our saffron odours? 

Philips. 

And round about he taught sweet flowers to grow 

The purple hyacinth and the costmarie, 

And saffron saught for in Cilicias soyle. Spencer. 

i 

Love moderately long love doth so 

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. 

Shakespeare. 

AUGUST 2 


Cactus. Cactus. 

Warmth. 

And cactuses, a queen might don 

If weary of a golden crown 

And still appear as royal. 

E. B. Browning. 

How slow the time 


To the warm soul, that in the very instant 

It forms, would execute a great design. 

Thomson. 

AUGUST 3 


Hollyhock . A Ithaea 

Female ambition. 

Queen hollyhocks, with butterflies for crowns. 

Jean Ingelow. 

And from the nectaries of holyhocks 

The humble bee, e’en till he faints will sip. 

Horace Smith. 

J ust holly hawks, but seems to me, seen through my risin’ tears, 

They’re smiles of the old fashioned folks, still livin’ through the years. 

Will T. Hale. 

A perfect woman, nobly planned 

To warn, to comfort and command 
And yet a spirit still and bright 
With something of an angel light. 

Wordsworth. 


150 





151 















AUGUST 4 

Creeping Jenny. Lysimachia nummularia. 

Yellow 1si mac hia to give sweet rest 

To the faint shepherd; killing where it comes 

All busy gnats and every fly that hums. 

From the Faithful Shepherdess 

I see a lot of your green but your blossoms are turned to the light. 

Your blossoms so many and bonny 
Your blossoms so yellow and bright 

And you little Jenny there in your lovely ditch all day 
Have nothing on earth to do except to be green and gay. 

E. II. Hickey. 


AUGUST 5 

Ice Plant. Mesembryanthemum crystallinum. 

Till the shivering ice-plant best might mark 
The glades of its chill decay. 

Mrs. Sigourney. 

With pellucid studs the ice flower gems 
His rising foliage and his candied stems. 

Darwin. 

The cold in clime are cold in blood 
Their love can scarce deserve the name; 

But mine was like the lava flood 
That boils in Etna’s breast of flame. 

Byron. 


AUGUST 6 

Wild bean flower. Apios tuberosa. 

There the next produce of a genial shower, 

The bean’s fresh blossoms in a speckled flower. Richard Savage. 
The bean flower in her white attire 

Displayed in vain her modest charms. A. Cary. 

The lily’s hue, the rose’s dye 
The kindling lustre of an eye, 

Who but owns their magic sway 
Who but knows they all decay? 

The tender thrill, the pitying tear, 

The generous purpose nobly dear, 

The gentle look that rage disarms, 

These are all immortal charms. Burns. 


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AUGUST 7 

Love lies bleeding. Aramanthus Candatus. Hopeless not heartless. 

And still my home this mansion make 
Of all unheeded and unheeding 
And cherish for my warrior’s sake, 

The flower of 'Love lies bleeding’ 

Thos. Campbell. 

A hero’s bride this desert bower, 


It ill befits thy gentle breeding: 

And wherefore dost thou love this flower 

To call my love lies bleeding. 

Moore. 


Hope the befriending points ever more upward to Heaven. 



Longfellow. 

AUGUST 8 


Sun-dew. Drosera rotundifolia. 


A littlemarsh plant yellow green 

And tipped at lip with tender red 

Tread close and either way you tread 

Some faint black water jets between 

Lest you should bruise the curious head. 

You call it sun-dew; how it grows 

If with its color it have breath 

If life taste sweet to it, if death 

Pain its soft petal, no man knows; 

Man hath no sight or sense that saith. 

Swinburne. 

The weary sun hath made a golden set 

And by the bright tract of his fiery car 

Gives signal of a goodly day to come. 

Shakespeare. 

AUGUST 9 


Sage. Salvia splendens. 

Esteem. 

I could paint the garden with its paths 

Cut smooth and running straight 

The grey sage bed, and poppies red 

And the lady grass at the gate. 

A. Cary. 

Then take what gold could never buy 

An honest bard’s esteem. 



Burns. 

Judges and senators have been bought for gold 
Esteem and love were never to be sold. 

Pope. 


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AUGUST 10 


Acacia Tree. Acacia. Concealed love. 

Thy Arab maid will be thy loved and lone acacia tree. 

Moore. 

They only heard the murmuring song 

Of summer breeze 

That gently played among 

The acacia trees. 

/ 

1. A. Proctor. 

Our rocks are rough but smiling there 

Th’ acacia waves her yellow hair 

Lonely and sweet nor loved the less 

For flowering in a wilderness. 

Moore. 

AUGUST 11 


A maranth. A maranthus. 

Immortality. 

Immortal amaranth, a flower which once 

In Paradise, fast by the tree of life 

Began to bloom. 

Milton. 

The spirit culls, 

Unfaded amaranth when wild it strays, 

Through the old garden ground of boyish days. Keats. 

I hold it ever, 

Virtue and cunning were endowments greater 
Than nobleness and riches; careless heirs 

May the two latter darken and expand 

But immortality attends the former 

Making a man a god. 

Shakespeare. 

AUGUST 12 


Fennel. Foeniculum officinale. Worthy of all praise. 

The hearth, except when winter chill’d the day 
With aspen boughs and flowers and fennel gay 
Ranged o'er the chimney. 

Goldsmith. 

Fennel-I grasped it atremble with dew—whatever it bode. 

* * * * * * 

Fight I shall with the foremost, wherever this fennel may grow 

Proud, Pan helping us Persia to the dust and under the deep 

Whelm her away forever. Browning. 

His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles; 

His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate, 

His tears pure messengers sent from his heart 

His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth. 

Shakespeare. 


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AUGUST 13 

Magnolia. Magnolia grandiflora. Love of nature. 

Soft waves the magnolia, its groves of perfume. 

Robert C. Sands. 

There lowering with imperial pride 
The rich magnolia stands. 

Caroline Gilman. 

Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magnolia blossoms. 

ii Longfellow. 

To him who in the love of nature holds communion 

She speaks a various language. Bryant. 

Lovely indeed the mimic works of art 

But nature’s works far lovelier. Cowper. 


AUGUST 14 

Forget-me-not. Myosotis laxa. True love. 

The star of lover’s hope, forget me-not. 

Edwin Arnold. 

The sweet forget me-not that grows for happy lovers. 

Tennyson. 

That blue and bright eyed flower of the brook 
Hope’s gentle gem, the sweet forget-me-not. 

Coleridge. 

Love is its own great loveliness always 
And takes new luster from the touch of time 
Its bough owns no December and no May 
But bears its blossoms into winter’s clime. 

T. Hood. 


AUGUST 15 

Clematis. Clematis. Artifice. 

The virgin’s bower trailing airily with others of the sisterhood. 

Keats. 

The Clematis, the favor’d flower, 

Which boasts the name of virgin bower. Scott. 

Still is my love behind the mask. 

It is a hypocrite, looks every way 
But that where lies its thought. 

Will openly frown on the thing it smiles in secret on. 
Shows most like hate e’en when it most is love. 

James Sheridan Knowles. 


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AUGUST 16 

Chicory. Ckicorium Intybus. Prudent economy. 

O not in ladies* gardens, 

My peasant posy. 

Smile thy dear blue eyes, 

Nor only—nearer to the skies- 
In upland pastures dim and sweet- 
But by the dusty road 
Where tired feet 
Toil to and fro; 

Where flaunting sin 

May see thy heavenly hue 

Or weary sorrow look from thee 

Towards a more tender blue. Margaret Deland. 

The succory to match the sky. Emerson. 


AUGUST 17 

Marsh Marigold. Caltha palustris. Vulgar minded. 

The wild marsh marigold shines like fire in swamps and hallows gray. 

Te'nnyson. 

Hark, hark, the lark at Heaven’s gate sings 
And Phoebus ’gins to arise 
His steeds to water at those springs 
On chalic’d flowers that lies; 

And winking Mary-buds begin 
To ope their golden eyes; 

When everything that pretty is- 
My lady sweet arise, 

Arise, arise. 

Shakespeare. 

Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar. 

Shakespeare. 

AUGUST 18 

Orchises. Orchis mascula. A Belle. 

The purple orchises w'ith spotted leaves. 

Matthew Arnold. 

There with fantastic garlands did she come 
Of crow flowers, nettles, daisies and “Long Purples” 

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name. 

Shakespeare. 

The crimson orchis scarce sustains 
Upon its drenched and drooping spire 
The burden of the warm soft rain. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

Thou art beautiful young lady 
But I need not tell you this 
For few have borne unconsciously 
The spell of loveliness. 

J. G. Whittier. 


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AUGUST 19 

Moon flower. Lunaria biennis. Forgetfulness. 

And the white moon flower as it shows 
On Serendib’s crags to those 
Who near the isle at evening sail. 

Moore. 


Enchanting lunarie here lies, 

In secrecies excelling. 

We bury love 

Forgetfulness grows over it like grass. 
That is the thing to weep for not the dead. 


Drayton. 


Alex Smith. 


God forgive when the fair forget us: 

The worth of a smile, the weight of a tear 
Why, who can measure? The fates beset us. 

We laugh a moment, we mourn a year. 

Joaquin Miller. 


AUGUST 20 

Aster. Aster. Alpinus. Beauty in retirement. 

Chide me not laborious hand 
For the idle flower I brought 
Every aster in my hand 

Goes home leaded with a thought. Emerson. 

The bleak hill’s rocky side 

Where nodding asters wave in purple pride. Sarah H. Whitman 
It stooped to the asters all blooming around 
And kissed the buds as they slept on the ground. 

Sam'l. Goodrich. 

Like the violet which alone 
Prospers in some happy shade 
My Castara lives unknown 
To no looser eye betrayed. 

For she’s to herself untrue 
Who delights in the public view. 

Wm. Habington. 


Moly. 


AUGUST 21 


But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly 

How sweet [while warm airs lull us blowing lowly 

With half dropt eyelids still 

Beneath a heaven dark and holy 

To watch the long bright river drawing slowly 

FI is waters from the purple hill. 

Tennyson. 


For youth no less becomes 

The light and careless livery that it wears, 

Than settled age his sables and his weeds 
Importing health and graveness. 

Shakespeare. 


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AUGUST 22 

Dahlia. Compositae . Dignity . 

Clustering dahlia, with its scentless flowers 
Cheating the heart through autumn’s faded hours. 

Mrs. Norton. 

The garden grew with dahlias large and new. 

E. Elliott. 

I have no stately dahlias, nor greenhouse flowers to weep- 
But I passed the rich man’s garden and the mourning there was deep, 
For the crownless queens all drooping hung amid the wasted sod 
Like Boadicea bent with shame beneath the Roman rod. 

Mrs. Segourney. 

Faster than spring time flowers, comes thought on thought 
And not a thought but thinks of dignity. 

Shakespeare. 

She has a natural wise sincerity, 

A simple truthfulness, and these have lent her 
A dignity as moveless as the center. 

J. R. Lowell. 


AUGUST 23 

Melon flower. 

The buttercups the little children’s dower 
Far brighter than this gaudy melon flower. 

Robt. Browning. 

And as goods lost are sold or never found 
As faded gloss no rubbing will refresh 
As flowers dead lie withered on the ground; 

As broken glass no cement can redress 
So beauty blemish’d once’s for ever lost 
In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost. 

Shakespeare. 


AUGUST 24 

King cup. Ranunculus. I wish I was rich. 

Pansies, lilies, king cups, daisies 

Let them live upon their praises. Wordsworth. 

Strowe me the grounde with daffodowndillies 
And cowslips and kingcups and loved lilies. 

Spencer. 

Is the king cup crowned in the meadow? 

Sidney Dobell. 

The yellow kingcup, Flora them assigned. 

To be the badges of a jealous mind. 

Wm. Browne. 

The royal kingcup bold 
Dares not don his coat of gold. 

Edwin Arnold. 

All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades 
Like the fair flowers, dishevelled in the wind; 

Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream. Cowper. 


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Marjoram. 


AUGUST 25 

Origanum Marjorana. 


Blushes. 


Indeed she was the sweetest marjoram of the sallet, or rather 
the herb of grace. 

Shakespeare. 


The thyme strong scented 'neath our feet 
And marjoram so doubly sweet. 

Clare . 


The marj’ram sweet, in shepherd’s posie found. 

Wm. Shenstone. 

Is that rose of dawning glowing on your cheek 
Telling us in blushes what you would not speak, 

Shy and tender maiden, I would fain forego 
All the golden future just to keep you so. 

Mrs. L. C. Moulton . 


AUGUST 26 


Amaryllis. Splendid beauty. 

She wondered why I would not choose that dreamy amaryllis. 

Mrs. M. E. Bradley. 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. 

J. Keats. 

The life is dear: for all that life can rate 
Worth name of life in thee hath estimate; 

Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all 
That happiness and prime can happy call. 

Shakespeare. 


AUGUST 27 

Eglantine. Rosa Rubiginosa. I wound to heal. 

The grass, the thicket, the fruit tree wild: 

White hawthorne and the pastoral eglantine: 

Fast fading violets covered up in leaves. 

John Keats. 

And in the warm hedges grew the warm eglantine 
Green cowbind and the moon light colored May: 

And the cherry blossoms, and the white caps whose wine 
Was the bright dew, yet drained not by the day. 

Shelly. 

[Love] like a tyrant, cruel wounds she gives, 

Like surgeon, salves she lends; 

But salve or sore have equal force 
For death is both their ends. 

Robert Southwell , S. J. 


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AUGUST 28 


Laburnum. Cytisus. Pensive Beauty. 

Where the laburnum droop’d: or haply binding 

The jasmine up the door’s low pillars winding. 

Felicia Hemans. 

A bush of Mayflowers with the bees about them 

Ah, sure no tasteful nook could be without them 

And let a lush laburnum over sweep them 

And let long grasses grow round the roots to keep them. 

J. Keats. 

0, she doth teach the torches to burn bright, 
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night 
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear: 

Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. 

Shakespeare. 

AUGUST 29 


Cardinal flower. Lobelia Cardinalis. 

Distinction. 

And the red pennons of the cardinal flowers 
Hang motionless upon their upright stems. 

Whittier. 

The violet always so white and so saintly 

The cardinal warming the frost with her blaze. 

A. Cary. 

In the wind and tempest of her frown, 
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan 
Puffing at all winnows the light away: 

And what has mass or matter of itself, 

Lies rich in virtue and unmingled. 

Shakespeare. 

AUGUST 30 


Cranberry. Oxycoccus palustris. 

Hardihood. 

The cranberry blossom dweleth there 

Amid the mountain cold 

Seeming like a fairy gift 

Left on the dreary wold. 

Twamly. 

The mind I sway by and the heart I bear 

Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear. 


Shakespeare. 


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Poppy. 


AUGUST 31 

Papaver rhoeas. Forgetfulness. 

How the wind blows the poppies scarlet capes. 

Chas. Turner. 

And far and wide in a scarlet tide 
The poppy’s bonfire spread. 

Bayard Taylor. 

Of all afflictions taught a lover yet, 

’Tis sure the hardest science to forget. 

Pope. 


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SEPTEMBER 1 

Carnation. Dianthus. Alas for my poor heart. 

Where opening roses breathing sweets diffuse, 

And soft carnations shower their balmy dews. Pope. 

Bring carnations and sops-in-wine 

Worne of paramours. Spencer. 

Carnations, once 

Prized for surpassing beauty, and no less 
For the peculiar pains they had required 
Declined their languid heads, wanting support. 

Wordsworth. 

And many a rose carnation fed 

With summer spice the humming air. Tennyson. 

Love he comes and love he tarries, 

Just as fate or fancy carries, 

Longest stays, when sorest chidden, 

Laughs and flies when press’d and bidden. Thos. Campbell. 
SEPTEMBER 2 

Wild daisy. Beilis. I will think of it. 

That will by reason men may call it 
The daisie or els the “eye of the day” 

Chaucer. 

Then claim for thy emblem the flower God given 
Alike to both hovel and hall— 

The common wild daisy-the humble field daisy 
The daisy that blossoms for all. 

Minnie Gilmore. 

The rose has but a summer reign 
The daisy never dies. 

Montgomery. 

Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers 
Where the blue bells and “gowans” lurk lowly unseen. 

Burns. 

Daisies in their beds secure 

Gazing out so meek and pure. Sarah C. Mayo. 


SEPTEMBER 3 

Indian Pipe. Monotropa uniflora. Peace. 

The white brittle Indian Pipe lifts up its bowl. 

Alfred B. Street. 

Where the long slant rays are beaming 
Where the shadows cool lie dreaming 
Pale the Indian Pipes are gleaming 

Laugh O murmuring spring. Sarah F. Davis. 

In shining groups, each stem a pearly ray 
Weird flecks of light within the shadowed wood 
They dwelt aloft, a spotless sisterhood 
No Angelus except the wild bird’s lay 
Awakes these forest nuns. 

Mary F. Higginson. 

Peace thy olive wand extend 
And bid wild war his ravage end, 

Man with brother man to meet, 

And as brother kindly greet. Burns. 


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SEPTEMBER 4 

Rose acacia. Acacia Friendship. 

And peeping through my lattice bars 
The rose acacia blooms. 

Sarah A. Whitman. 

Acacias having drunk the lees 
Of the night dew. 

E. B. Browning. 


Let us then be what we are and speak what we think 
And in all things keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred pro¬ 
fession of friendship. 

The name of friendship is sacred. 

Longfellow. 


SEPTEMBER 5 

Mushroom. Fungi. Suspicion. 


He that the growth on cedars did bestow, 

Gave also lowly mushrooms leave to grow. 

Robt. Southwell , S. J. 


The humble mushroom scarcely known 
The lowly native of a country town. 

Dry den. 

The earth to Thee her incense yields 
The lark Thy welcome sings 
When, glittering in the freshen’d fields 
The snowy mushroom springs. 

Thos. Campbell. 


Suspicions, amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds—they ever 
fly by twilight. 


Bacon. 


SEPTEMBER 6 

Bee Orchis. Oncidum papilio majus. 

The bee orchis 

Nor might its fairy wings unfold, 

Enchain’d in aromatic gold 

Think not to set the captive free 

’Tis but the picture of a bee. R. Snow. 

See on the floweret’s velvet breast 
How close the busy vagrant lies! 

His thin wrought plume, his downy breast 
The ambrosial gold that swells his thighs 
Perhaps his fragrant load may bind 
His limbs; we’ll set the captive free- 
I sought the living bee to find 

And found the picture of a bee. Langhorne. 

The orchis race with varied beauty charm 
And mocks the exploring bee or fly’s aerial form. 

Mrs. C. Smith. 

Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men 

The things thou art not? Shakespeare. 


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175 
















SEPTEMBER 7 

Heal all. Brunella vulgaris. 

Alone and forgotten, absolutely free, 

His happy time he spends, the works of God to see, 

In whose wonderful herbs which here in plenty grow 
Whose sundry strange effects he only seeks to know 
And choicely sorts his simples got abroad 
And dreams of the “All heal” that is still on the road. 

Drayton. 

No one wants a surgeon who keeps prunelle. 

French Proverb. 

Within the infant rind of this weak flower 
Poison hath residence and medicine power. 

Shakespeare. 


SEPTEMBER 8 

Rose of Jericho. Rosa Hyrica. Life Everlasting. 

I was exalted like a palm tree in Engaddi and as a rose plant in 
Jericho. Ecclesiasticus. 

Here is the Rose 
Where in the Word Divine 
Was made incarnate 
And here the lilies by whose order know 
The way of life was followed. Dante. 

Rosa mystica, ora pro nobis 

Hevins distill your balmy shouris 

For now is risen the bright day-stir 

For the Rose Mary flour of flowers. Wm. Dunbar. 

Thou art the myrtle and the blooming rose of Paradise 
Thou art the fairness of Heaven and the feast day of our hearts. 

St. Peter Damien. 


SEPTEMBER 9 

Golden Rod. Arguta solidago. Encouragement. 

Heavy with sunshine droops the golden rod. 

J. G. Whittier. 

Who would be poor when to the hand 
Such filigrees in splendor nod? 

Gold arabesques all o’er the land 
The golden plumes of the golden rod. 

M. Hancock. 

Unloved the sunflower, shining fair 
Ray round with flames her disk of seed. 

Tennyson. 

Desire with small encouragement grows bold 
And hope of every little thing takes hold. 

Drayton. 


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177 


———- 






SEPTEMBER 10 

Fringed Gentian. Gentiana Crinita. Virgin Pride . 

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew 

And colored with the heaven’s own hue 

Thou openest when thy quiet light 

Succeeds the keen and frosty night. Bryant. 

And the blue gentian flower that, in the breeze 

Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last. Bryant. 

Who bade the sun 

Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers 
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? 

God. Let torrents, like a shout of nations 
Answer: and let this ice plains echo, God. 

Coleridge. 

With folded lids beneath their palmy shadow 
The gentian nods in dewy slumbers bound. 

Sarah H. Whitman. 


SEPTEMBER 11 

Swamp Magnolia. Magnolia. Perseverance. 

When roaming o’er the marshy field 
Through tangled brake and treacherous slough 
We start that spot so foul should yield 
Chaste blossom, such a balm as thou. 

Thos. Ward. 

The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway 
of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the pathway of the strong. 

Carlyle. 


SEPTEMBER 12 

Passion Flower. Passifiora Caerulea. Religious fervor. 

And thou whose opening buds were shone 

A Savior’s cross beside 

We hail thee passion flower alone 

Sacred to Christ Who died Lucy Hooper. 

And the faint passion flower, the sad and holy 
Tell of diviner hopes. Hemans. 

The starry passion still 
Upon the green trellis climbs 
The tendrils waving seem to keep 
The sadness of the rhyme. A. A. Proctor. 

And one will bid white lilies bless the gloom; 

And one perchance, will plant the passion flower. 

Frances Osgood. 

Religion that doth make vows kept. 

Shakespeare. 


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179 























SEPTEMBER 13 

Ragged Robin. Lychins. 

Dandy. 

I’ve ragwort, ragged robin too, 

Cheap flowers for those of low condition; 
For batchelors I’ve buttons blue, 

And crown imperials for ambition. 

Mrs. Corbold. 

A man of taste is Robinet 

A dandy spruce and trim 

Whoe’er would dainty fashion set 
Should go and look at him. 


How civilly he beckons in 

The busy Mrs. Bee; 

And she tells her store of gossiping 
O’er his honey and his glee. 

Twamley. 

SEPTEMBER 14 


Twin flower. Luinoea borealis. 


Beneath dim aisles in odorous beds 

The slight luinaea hangs its twin heads. 


R. 

W. Emerson. 

All who joy would win must share it. 
Happiness was born a twin. 

Byron. 

SEPTEMBER 15 


Lady fingers. Anthyllis vulner aria. 

Insincerity. 

Go down to the end of the orchard and bring 

The fair ‘Lady fingers’ that grew by the spring; 

Pale bell flowers and pippins all burnished with gold. 

P. Cary. 

Often times to win us to our harms, 

The instruments of darkness tell us truths 

Win us with honest trifles, to betray us in deepest consequence. 

Shakespeare. 

Hateful to me as are the gates of hell 

Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart 
Utters another. 

Anon. 


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181 






SEPTEMBER 16 

White Mulberry. Morns alba. Wisdom. 

When did wisdom covet length of days? 

Or seek its bliss in pleasure, wealth or praise? 

No:-wisdom views with an indifferent eye 
All finite things, as blessings born to die. 

Hannah More. 

The red breasts singing where the fruit trees wave 
Its silken canopy of mulb’ry leaves. 

Rufus Dawes. 

“The green leaf which feeds the spinning worm.” 

And that old mulberry that shades the court 
Has been my joy from childhood up. 

Kirke White. 


SEPTEMBER 17 

Maple. Acer. Reserve. 

The maple puts her corals on in May 
While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling. 

J. R. Lowell. 

Within the solemn woods of ash deep crimsoned 
The silver beech and maple yellow leaved. 

Longfellow. 

Look deeper still; if thou canst feel 
Within thy inmost soul 
That thou hast kept a portion back 
While I have staked the whole 
Let no false pity spare the blow 
But in true mercy tell me so. 

A. A. Proctor. 


SEPTEMBER 18 

Yarrow. Achillaea millefolium. Cure for the heart ache. 

The wholesome yarrow’s clusters fine 
Like frosted silver dimly shine 

Celia Thaxter. 

Thou pretty herb of Venus tree 
Thy true name it is yarrow 
Now who my dearest friend shall be 
Pray tell thou me tomorrow. 

Old English rhyme. 

Who that has loved knows not the tender tale 
Which flowers reveal when lips are coy to tell? 

Bulwer Lytton. 


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SEPTEMBER 19 


Wild lettuce. Lactuca Canadensis. 

Coldhearted. 

Fat colworts and comforting purseline 

Cold lettuce and refreshing rosemarine. 

Spencer. 

Then shall wee sporten in delight 

And learn with lettuce to wax light 

That scornfully looks askaunce. 

Spencer. 

Whence comes my love? 0 heart disclose; 

It was from cheeks that shamed the rose, 

From lips that spoil the ruby’s praise 

Whence comes my woe, as freely own; 

Ah me ’twas from a heart like stone. 

John Harrington. 

SEPTEMBER 20 

Orange Blossoms. Citrus aurantium. 

Chastity. 

I saw her but a moment 

Yet me thinks I see her now 

With the wreath of orange blossoms 
Upon her snowy brow. Thos. 

H. Bayly. 

Bring flowers, fresh flowers for the bride to wear 

They were born to blush in her shining hair. Mrs. Hemans. 

Let a bride of old 

In triumph led 

With music and sweet showers 

Of festal flowers 

Unto the dwelling she must sway. 

Tennyson. 

So dear to heaven is saintly chastity 

That when a soul is found sincerely so, 

A thousand liv’ried angels lacquey her, 

Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt. 

Milton. 

SEPTEMBER 21 


Mangroves Rhizophora 


And mangroves bent their limits to taste 

The wave that calmly floated by 

And showed beneath as purely glassed 

A softer image of the sky. 

Percival. 

Each tender mango shoot 

That folds and drops so bashful down; 

It lives, it sucks some hidden root 

It rears at last a broad green crown. 

Charles Kingsley. 

Words are like leaves, and where they most abound, 
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. 

Pope. 


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SEPTEMBER 22 

Medler. Mespilus. 

And now he will sit under a medlar tree, 

And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit 
As maids called medlars when they laugh alone. 

Shakespeare. 

And as I stood and cast my eie 
I was ware of the fairest medlar tree 
That ever yet, in all my life I sie 
As full of blossoms as it might be. 

Geoffrey Chaucer. 

A woman sometimes scorns what best contents her, 

Never give her o’er; 

For scorn at first makes after love the more. 

Take no repulse, whatever she doth say; 

For “get you gone” she doth not mean “away” 

That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man 

If with his tongue he cannot win a woman. Shakespeare. 


SEPTEMBER 23 

Dead rose. Sweet memories. 

The heart doth recognize thee 
Alone, alone, the heart doth smell thee sweet 
Doth view thee fair, doth judge thee most complete 
Perceiving all these changes that disguise thee, 

Yes, and the heart doth owe thee 

More love than all the roses bold 

Which Julia wears at dances smiling cold 

Lie still upon this heart, which breaks below thee. 

E. B. Browning. 


SEPTEMBER 24 

Cinquefoil. Potentilla Canadensis. Beloved Child. 

When the last glow of departed day 
Is gleaming upon the ocean’s spray 
And gentle breezes of evening sweep 
Their vesper music o’er the deep 
Go seek in the shady home where they dwell 
The creeping cinquefoil and lovely blue bell. 

Anon. 

Her peerless feature 
Approves her fit for none but for a king. 

Shakespeare. 


186 









SEPTEMBER 25 


Coreopsis. coreopsis tinctoria. Happy at all times. 

To wake the world from soft September dreams 

The hills in dazzling limes are prodigal 

Bright Coreopsis stately cardinal 

Blaze out like beacons light from clefts and streams. 

Simeon T. Clark. 

And against her sweet cheerfulness was placed 

Whose eyes like twinkling stars in evening clear 

Were deck’t with smyles, that all sad humors chased 

And darted forth delights, the which her goodly graced. 


Spencer. 

SEPTEMBER 26 


Cyprian Roses. 

Love. 

The rose that o’er the Cyprian plains 

With flowers enamell’d blooming reigns 

With undisputed power. 

Shenstone. 

Lilies on the river’s side 

And fair Cyprian flowers newly blown 
Ask no beauty but their own 

Ornament is the nurse of pride. 

England. 

Love, free as the air at sight of human ties 
Spreads his light wings and in a moment flies. 

Pope. 

SEPTEMBER 27 


Celandine. Chelidinium majus. 

Future joy. 

Buttercups that will be seen 

Whether we will see or no; 

Others too of lofty mein; 

They have done as worldlings do, 

Taken praise that should be thine 
Little humble celandine. 

Wordsworth. 

For the sun these days had been so fine 
Must have touched it over with celandine. 

Sidney Dobell. 

Joy is the tender shadow which sorrow casts. 

Jeremy Taylor. 


188 



















SEPTEMBER 28 

Hairy Hawk-bit Leontodon hirtus. Coquetry. 

How sweetly on the autumn scene 
When haws are red amid the green 
The hawk-bit shines with face of cheer 
The favorite of the faltering year. 

Chas. G. D. Roberts. 

In the school of coquettes 
Madame Rose is a scholar 
O they fish with all nets 
In the school of coquettes 
When her brooch she forgets 
’Tis to show her new collar 
In the school of coquettes 
Madame Rose is a scholar. 

Austin Dobson. 


SEPTEMBER 29 

Michaelmas daisy. Aster tripolium. Farewell. 

Within my little garden is a flower— 

A tuft of flowers, most like a sheaf of corn 

The lilac blossom’d daisy that is born 

At Michaelmas, wrought by the gentle power 

Of this sweet autumn unto one bright shower 

Of blooming beauty. Miss Mitford. 

Last smile of the departing year 
Thy sister sweets are flown. 

Thy pensive wreath is far more dear 

From blooming thus alone. Anon. 

When eyes are beaming what never tongue might tell, 

When tears are streaming from their crystal cell, 

When hands are linked that dread to part 
And heart is met by throbbing heart, 

O bitter, bitter is the smart of those who bid farewell. 

Anon. 


SEPTEMBER 30 

Aspen. Populus tremula. Lamentation. 

With every change his features played 
As aspens show the light and shade. 

Scott. 

With boughs that quaked at every breath 
Gay birch and aspen wept beneath. 

Scott. 

Some weep because they parted 
And others—Oh my heart, 

Because they never parted. 

T. B. Aldrich. 

Why tremble so, broad aspen tree? 

Why shake thy leaves ne’er ceasing? 

At rest thou never seems to be 
For when the air is still and clear 
Or when the nipping gale increasing, 

Shakes from thy bough soft twilight’s tear 
Thou tremblest still, broad aspen tree 
And never tranquil seem’st to be. 

Anon. 


190 















OCTOBER 1 

Our Lady's fringed eye. Tears. 

The asters in pomp and variety stand 
Where the golden rods scepter appears 
While low in the meadow Our Lady’s fringed eye 
Is still lifted in beauty and tears. 

Eliza Allen Starr. 

For beauty’s tears are lovelier than her smile. 

Campbell. 

Tears show their love, but want their remedies. 

Shakespeare. 

This is my birthday and a happier one was never mine. 

Dante. 


OCTOBER 2 

Yellow Archangel. Lamium Galeocdolon. 

Les fleurs sont le language des anges. 

A non. 

As smoke drives away bees so does our sinfulness cause our Angel 
Guardians to forsake us. 


OCTOBER 3 

Hops. Trifolium hybridum. Injustice. 

And ivy veined and glossy 
Was enwrought with eglantine 
And the wild hop fibred closely 
And a large leaved columbine. 

E. B. Browning. 

The hop vines twisting through the pales 
The crimson cups of hollyhocks 
The lilies in white veils. 

A. Cary. 

Man is unjust, but God is just and finally justice triumphs. 

Longfellow. 


192 










OCTOBER 4 

Walnuts. Juglans. Stratagem. 

A little to the right one sees, 

Some black and sturdy walnut trees, 

P. Cary. 

They gathered the spicewood and the ginsing roots 
And the boy could fashion whistles and flutes 
Out of the pawpaw and walnut shoots. 

P. Cary. 

Let cavillers deny 

That brutes have reason; sure 'tis something more, 

’Tis heaven directs, and stratagem inspires 
Beyond the short extent of human thought. 

Somerville. 


OCTOBER 5 

Wild Sun flower. Helianthus giganteus. Pride. 

But on the hill the golden rod 

And the aster in the wood 

And the yellow sunflower by the brook 

In autumn beauty stood. 

W. C. Bryant. 

I was proud Chaldean’s monarch’s child. 

Mary E. Stebbins. 

Eagle of flowers I see thee stand 
And on the sun's noon glory gaze; 

Will eye like his thy lips expand 
And fringe their disk with golden rays. 

Jas. Montgomery. 

Pride goeth forth on horse back grand and gay 
But cometh back on foot and begs the way. 

Longfellow. 


OCTOBER 6 

Flora's bell . You're without pretension . 

Flora then from her bosom of fragrance, shook 
With roseate fingers pressed down in the bowl 
All dripping and fresh as it came from the brook 
The herb whose aroma should flavor the whole. 

C. F. Hoffman. 

Warn all creation from thee 

Henceforth: lest that too heavenly form, pretended 
To hellish falsehood snare thee. 

Milton . 


194 






195 






OCTOBER 7 

Catalpa. National Hospitality. 

Ye winds, ye unseen currents of the air 
Softly ye played a few brief hours ago; 

Ye bore the murmuring bee: ye tossed the hair 
O’er the maiden cheeks that took a fresher glow; 

Ye rolled the white round clouds thro’ depths of blue; 

Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew 

Before yon Catalpa’s blossoms flew 

Light blossoms, drooping on the grass like snow. 

Bryant. 

But the kind hosts their entertainments grace 


With hearty welcome and an open face; 

In all they did you might discern with ease 

A willing mind and a desire to please. 

Dryden. 

OCTOBER 8 


Viburnum. Viburnum. 


The viburnum there 

Paler of foliage, to the sun holds up 
Her circlet of green berries. 

Bryant. 

The heart has tendrils like the vine 

Which round another’s bosom twine 

Out springing from the parent tree 

Of deeply planted sympathy 

Where flowers are hope, its fruits are bliss 
Beneficence its harvest is. 

J. Bowring. 

OCTOBER 9 


Crab tree. Malus coronaria. 


I prithee let me bring thee where crabs grow 

And I with my long nails will dig the pig nuts. 

Shakespeare. 

What torment equal to the grief of mind, 

And pining anguish hid in gentle heart, 

That only feeds itself with thoughts unkind, 
And nourishes its own consuming smart? 

Spencer. 


196 










Danger. 


OCTOBER 10 

Dragon Plant. Physostegia Virginiana. 

Oh, wander not where dragonarum shower 
Her baleful dews and twine her purple flowers, 

Lest round thy neck she throw her snaring arms 
Sap thy life’s blood and riot on thy charms. 

Mrs. F. A. Rowden. 

The spreading for all mankind is laid 
And lovers all betray or are betrayed. 

Dryden. 

Thou little know’st 

What he can brave, who born and nurst 
In danger’s paths, has dared her worst. 

Moore. 


OCTOBER 11 


Coronilla. Coronilla. 

Crown. 

Who can prize the coronal 

That’s formed to dazzle, wither and fall. 

Eliza Cook. 

And crown your head with heavenly coronall 
Such as the angels wear before God’s tribunall. 

Spencer. 

Untimely my flower forced to fall 

That bene the honour of your coronall. 

Spencer. 

Fearless minds climbs soonest into crowns. 

Shakespeare. 

OCTOBER 12 

Oleander. 

Beware. 

And through her dear feasts of October 

The roses bloomed still 

Our baskets were laden with flowers 

Her vases to fill; 

Oleanders, geraniums and myrtles 

We choose at our will. 

A. 

A. Proctor. 

“There the oleander telleth thee—beware.” 


While you here do snoring lie 

Open eyed conspiracy 

His time doth take; 

If of life you keep a care 

Shake off slumber and beware. 

Shakespeare. 


198 






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OCTOBER 13 

Anise. Pimpinella. 

God shield ye, Easter daisies all 
Fair roses, buds and blossoms small 
And he whom erst the gore 
Of Ajax and Narciss did print 
Ye wild thyme, anise, balm and mint 
I welcome ye once more. 

Pierre Rostand. 

I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods, 

Where grew the ragged ferns and roughened moss 
The naked silent trees have taught me this 
The loss of beauty is not always loss. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Stoddard. 


Tanne. 


OCTOBER 14 

But from their nature will the tannen grow 
Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks 
Rooted in barrenness where naught below 
Of soil supports them ’gainst the Alpin shocks 
Of edding storms; yet springs the trunk and mocks 
The howling tempest till its height and frame 
Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks 
Of bleak gray granite into life it came 
And grew a giant tree; 

The mind may grow the same. Byron. 

Boldness and firmness, these are virtue’s each; 

Noble in action; excellent in speech 
But who is bold without considerate skill 
Rashly rebels and has no law but will; 

While he called firm, illiterate, and crass 
With mulish stubbornness obstructs the pass. 

J.B. O'Reilly. 


OCTOBER 15 

Solomon's seal. Polygonatum multifiorum. Seal . 

The Solomon’s seal of gold so fine 
And the kingcup holding its dewy wine 
Up to the crowned dandelions. 

P. Cary. 

King Solomon stood in his crown of gold 
Between the pillars before the altar 
In the House of God. And the king was old 
And his strength began to falter 
So that he leaned on his ebony staff 
Sealed with the seal of the Pentograph. 

Bulwer Lytton. 


200 















Henna. 

OCTOBER 16 

Campire. 

Artifice. 


While some bring leaves of henna to imbue, 
The finger ends with a bright roseate hue 

So bright, that in the mirror’s depth they seem 
Like tips of coral branches in the stream. 

Moore. 


My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna flowers. 

Song of Songs. 

And stain with henna plant the tips 

Of her pointed nails. 

T. B. Aldrich. 

Where rose and henna ever made 

The fragrant earth seem glad; 

And as she read the dreamer fair, 

Sat, wishing that her home was there. 

Miss Pratt. 


OCTOBER 17 


Tuberose. Tuberosa. Dangerous pleasures. 


The sweet tuberose, 

The sweetest flower for scent that blows. 

Shelly. 


The tuberose with her silver light 

That in the gardens of Malay, 

Is called the mistress of the night 

So like a bride scented and bright 

She comes out when the sun’s away. 

Moore. 


Pleasures, wrong or rightly understood 

Our greatest evil or our greatest good. 

Pope. 


OCTOBER 18 


Corn. 

With birchen boats and glancing oars 

The red men to their fishing go 

While from their planting ground is bourne 

The treasure of the golden corn 

By laughing girls. 

Riches. 


J. 

G. Whittier. 


Abundance is a blessing to the wise 

The use of riches in discretion lies 

Learn this, ye men of wealth-a heavy purse 

In a fool’s pocket is a heavy curse. 

Meanender. 


202 










OCTOBER 19 

Pomegranate tree. Punica. Lightning. 

Like a ripe pomegranate from a fruitful tree fell to the earth with¬ 
out doing violence to its nurse and parent. 

Jeremy Taylor. 



Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day; 

It was the nightengale and not the lark, 

That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear 

Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree 

Believe me love it was the nightengale. 

Shakespeare. 

Red lightnings played along the firmament 

And their demolished work to pieces went. 

Dryden. 

Rowan. 

OCTOBER 20 

European Mountain Ash. Prudence. 

A twine of rowan spray. 

.might keep away much harm. 


Wm. Allingham. 

Thy leaves were aye the first of spring, thy flowers the summer’s pride 
There was nae sic a bonnie tree in all the country side, 

O rowan tree. 



Lady Nairne. 

Look forward what’s to come and backwards what’s past 

Thy life will be with praise and prudence grac’d. 

What loss or gain may follow, thou may’st guess; 

Thou then will be secure of the success. 

Denham. 

Oxlip. 

OCTOBER 21 

Primula elatior. Native Grace. 


Oxlips in their cradels growing. 

Beaumont and Fletcher. 

I’ve gazed on many a brighter face 

And ne’er on one for years 

Where beauty left so soft a trace 

As it had left on hers. 

t» Mrs. Welby. 


204 









205 







OCTOBER 22 


Painted Cup. Bartsia euchrome coccinea. Fantastic extravagance. 

Harlequin Bartsie in his painted vest 

Of green and crimson. 

J. N. Baker. 

And growing in the green like flakes of fire 

And wanderers of the prairie knew them well, 

And called that brilliant flower the painted cup. 


Bryant. 

Woe to the youth whom fancy gains 
Winning from reason’s hands the reins. 

Scott. 

OCTOBER 23 


Elder. Sambucus Canadenis. 

Compassion. 

The white arched bridge, the scented elder flowers 

The wonderous water rings that die too soon. 

Geo. Elliott. 

You pause to pluck a creamy spray 

Of elder blossoms by the way. 

J. W. Riley. 

What is compassion when it is void of love? 

Addison. 

0, Heaven, can you hear a good man groan, 
And not relent or not compassion him? 

Shakespeare. 

OCTOBER 24 


Meadow-herbs. Lathyrus pratensis. 

Usefulness. 

The meadow-herb as if they felt 

Some secret wound, in showers 

Shook down their bright buds till her way 
Was ankle deep with flowers. 

A. Cary. 

Appearances deceive 

And this one maxim is a standing rule,- 
Men are not what they seem. 

Havard. 


206 







. 



















































































207 















OCTOBER 25 

Dog wood. Cornus Sanguined. Duration. 

Where the cornels arch their cool dark boughs o’er beds of winter green. 

Bryant. 


Here quick footed wolf 
Passing to lap the waters, crushed the flowers 
Of sanguinaria from whose brittle stems 
The red drops fell like blood. 

Bryant. 

Think not thy time is short in this world, since the world itself is 
not long. The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity 
and a short interposition, for a time between such a state of duration 
as it was before it and may be after it. 

Sir Thos. Browne. 


OCTOBER 26 

Juniper. Juniperus communis. Asylum. Protection. 


Various the trees and passing foliage here 
Wild pear and oak and dusty juniper. 

L. Hunt. 

A heap of withered boughs were piled 
Of Juniper and rowan wild. 

Scott. 


Sweet is the juniper but sharp his bough. 

Spencer 

Now let us rise, for hoarseness oft invades. 

The singer’s voice who sleeps beneath the shade 
From juniper unwholesome dews distill. 

Dryden. 

He Who thy soul in safety keeps 
Shall drive destruction hence 
The Lord thy Keeper never sleeps 

The Lord is thy defense. J. Montgomery. 


OCTOBER 27 

Golden blooms. 

Shooting, singing, ever springing 
In and out the emerald glooms 
Ever leaping, ever singing 
Lighting on the golden blooms. 


Tennyson. 

Ah, wasteful woman she who may, on her sweet self her own price 
Knowing she cannot choose but pay 
Has she not cheapened Paradise? 

How spoilt the bread and spilt the wine which spent with due respective 
thrift. 

Has made brutes men and men divine. 


Ruskin. 


208 









Thyme. 


OCTOBER 28 

Thymus Serpyllum. Activity or courage. 


Where marjoram 

And thyme the love of bees, perfume the air 
There bid thy roofs high on the basking steep 
Ascend: there light thy hospital fires. 

Dr. Armstrong. 

I’ll bid my hyacinth to blow 
And sing my true love all below 
The holly bower and myrtle tree 
Of mountain heath and moory thyme. 

Campbell. 


The bees on bells of thyme. 


Shelly. 


I dare do all that may become a man 
Who dares do more is none. 


Shakespeare. 

OCTOBER 29 

Wild Senna. Cassia Marilandica. Hidden worth. 


And the lion and now the pard 
Piercing the cassia bower drew nigh 
Fixed on the twain a mute regard 
Half pleased, half vacant 
And then passed by. 

Aubrey de Vere. 


All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes and cassia. 

Ps. xlv-8. 


Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear 
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

Gray. 


Bay Leaf. 


OCTOBER 30 

I change but in dying. 


Upon her head a crimson coronet 
With damaske roses, and daffodilles set 
Bay leaves between 
And primroses green 
Embellish the sweet violet. 


Spencer. 

My soul nor deigns, nor dares complain 
Though grief and passion there rebel 
I only know I loved in vain 
I only feel farewell, farewell. 

Byron. 


210 
















Ebony. 


OCTOBER 31 

Diospyros ebenus Hypocrisy. 

There mournful cyprewse grew in greatest store 
And trees of bitter gall; and heben sad. 

Spencer. 

Sleeping within my orchard 
My custom always of the afternoon 
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole 
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial 
And in the porches of mine ears did pour 
The leperous distillment 

Shakespeare. 


Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks 
Invisible, except to God alone, 

By His permissive will, through heaven and earth, 

And oft though wisdom wakes, suspicion sleeps 
At wisdom’s gate, and to simplicity 
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill 
Where no ill seems. 

Milton. 


212 




213 




NOVEMBER 1 


Chrysanthmum. I Love. 

So may life’s chill November bring 
Hope’s golden flower the last of all 
Before we hear the angels sing 

Where blossoms never fade or fall. 0. W. Holmes. 

Wan brightener of the fading year, 

Chrysanthmum; 

Rough teller of the winter near, 

Chrysanthmum. 

When hollyhocks droop low the head. 

And dahlias litter path and bed 

Thou bloometh bright in all their stead. 

Chrysanthmum. Wm. Cox Bennett. 

Oh, what was love made for if ’tis not the same 
Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame 
I know not, I ask not, if guilt’s in that heart 

I know that I love thee whatever thou art. Thos. Moore. 


Reeds. 


NOVEMBER 2 


Music. 


Sweet is the warbled reed’s melodious lay. Theocritus. 

From the hollow reeds he fashioned 

Flutes so musical and mellow. Longfellow. 

A heart, which, like a fine toned lute 

With every breath of feeling woke 

And even when the tongue was mute 

Fom eye and lip in music spoke. J. G. Whittier. 

Music the fiercest grief can charm 
And fate’s severest rage disarm: 

Music can soften pain to ease 

And make despair madness please. Pope. 

There’s music in the sighing of a reed. Byron. 

Arcadian pipe, the pastoral reed 

Of Hermes. Milton. 


NOVEMBER 3 

Larch. Larix Americana. Boldness. 

Where the larch tree throws 

Its broad dark boughs, in solemn repose 

Far over the silent bank. 

Bryant. 

I have looked o’er the hills of the stormy north 
And the larch tree has hung all his tassels forth. 

Mrs. Hemans. 

When rosy plumelets tuft the larch 

And rarely pipes the mounted thrush. Tennyson. 

In conversation now bear sway 
But know that nothing can so foolish be 
As empty boldness; therefore first assay 
And stuff thy mind with solid bravery; 

Then march on gallant. Get substantial worth 
Boldness gilds finely, and will set it forth. 

Herbert. 


214 











NOVEMBER 4 


Beech. Facus Grandifolia. 

Prosperity. 

As love’s own altar honours me 

Spare woodman, spare the beechem tree. 

Campbell. 


Prosperity is the very bond of love, whose fresh complection 
and whose heart together affection alters. 

Shakespeare. 


NOVEMBER 5 


Mountain Ash. 

Prudence. 


That gray hill 

Upon whose sides, from the gray mountain ash 
We gathered crimson berries. 



Geo. Lunt. 

She sees beneath its mountain ash 

Leafless, but all with berries red. 

A. Carey. 

Prudence, thou vainly in our youth are sought 
And with age purchased art too dearly bought 
We’er past the use of wit, for which we toil 

Late fruit, and planted in too cold a soil. 

Dryden. 

NOVEMBER 6 


Peacock Yew tree. Taxus. 


Not only to the market cross well known 

But in the leafy lanes behind the down 

Far as the portal warding lion whelp 

And peacock yew tree of the lonely hall 

Whose Friday fare was Enoch’s ministering. 

Tennyson. 

0 sons of earth, attempt ye still to rise 



By mountains piled on mountains to the skies? 

Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys 
And buries madmen in the heaps they rise. 

Pope . 


216 










NOVEMBER 7 

Byrony , Byronea Dioicia. Prosperity. 

The slender byrony that weaves 

His pale green flowers and glossy leaves 

Aloft in smooth and lithe festoons: 

And crown’d compact with yellow cones, 

’Mid purple petals dropp’d with green 
The woody nightshade climbs between. 

Mant. 

Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear; 

But seas do laugh, show white when rocks are near. 

Webster. 


NOVEMBER 8 

Sassafras and horehound. 

The throne was reared upon the grass 
Of spice wood and of sassafras. 

J. R. Drake. 

Dark maples where the wood thrush sings 
And bowers of fragrant sassafras. 

Bryant. 

Here’s golden amaranthus 
That true love can provoke 
Of horehound store, and poisonous helebore 
With the polipod of the oak. 

Beaumont and Fletcher. 
Though gay companions o’er the bowl 
Dispel awhile the sense of ill 
Though pleasure stir the madd’ning soul 
The heart, the heart, is lonely still. 

Byron. 


NOVEMBER 9 

Flax. Linaria. I feel your kindness. 

Oh, the little flax flower 

It groweth on the hill 

And, be the breeze awake or sleep 

It never standeth still. 

Mary Howitt. 

Nor are the bars in the homespun gown 
As blue as the flaxen flower. 

A. Cary. 

West and south there were fields of flax. 

Longfellow. 

Kindness in woman not their beauteous looks shall win my love. 

Shakespeare. 

Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together. 

Goethe. 


218 








219 






NOVEMBER 10 

Fir. Pinus. 

Time. 

You keep your youth as yon Scotch fir 
Whose gaunt line my horizon hems 
Though twilight all the lowland blur 
Hold sunset in their ruddy stems. 

Of whitish garniture like fir tree boughs. 

Of mountain fir with bark unshorn 
Where Ellen’s hand had taught to twine 
The ivy and the Idaen vine. 

J. R. Lowell. 

Wm. Wordsivorth. 

Scott. 

Time’s a very bankrupt and owes more than he’s worth to season. 

Shakespeare. 

Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends. 

Shakespeare. 

NOVEMBER 11 


Yellow Chrysanthmum. 

Slighted love. 

The fields are stripped, the groves are dumb; 

The frost flowers greet the icy morn 

Then blooms the bright chrysanthmum. 

Holmes. 

The berries of the brier rose 

Have lost their rounded pride; 

The bitter-sweet chrysanthemums 
Are drooping heavy eyed. 

A. Cary. 

Talk not of wasted affection 
Affection never was wasted. 

Longfellow. 

NOVEMBER 12 


Plantain. Alisma Plantago. Whiteman's foot steps. 

The plantain ribb’d, that heals the reapers wound. 


Wm. Shenstone. 

Your plantain leaf is excellent for that. 

Shakespeare. 

Plantains, the golden and the green. 

Moore. 

Where so ’ever they tread beneath them 

Springs a flower unknown among us 

Springs the “White man’s foot” in blossom. 

Longfellow. 


220 






221 

















NOVEMBER 13 

Tamarisk. Tamarix. Crime. 

Wilt thou on this declivity repose 
Where the rough tamarisk luxuriant grows? 

Theocritus. 

All have not offended; 

For those that were it is not square to take 
On those that are, revenge; 

Crimes like to lands 
Are not inherited. 

Shakespeare. 

Better be with the dead, when we to gain our place have sent peace 
Than on the torture of the mind to lie 
In restless ecstacy. 

Shakespeare. 


NOVEMBER 14 

Acanthus. Arts. Genius , stooping o'er. 

Her silent resting place learned of Italy’s acanthus, the arts 
Which Corinth claims. 

Milton. 

To hear the dewy echoes calling 
From cave to cave thro’ the thick-twined vine 
To watch the emerald color’d water falling 
Thro’ many a woven acanthus-wreath divine. 

Tennyson. 

For ill can poetry express 
Full many a tone of thought sublime 
And painting, mute and motionless 
Steals but a glance of time. 

Thos. Campbell. 


NOVEMBER 15 

Rue. Thalictrum dioicum. Disdain. 

There’s rue for you, and here’s some for us. 

Shakespeare. 

We may call it “herb o’ grace” on Sundays. 

Shakespeare. 

They strew the sunless turf with rosemary and rue. 

W. S. London. 

Her mouth is a honey blossom 
No doubt as the poets sing; 

But within her lips, the petals 
Lurks a cruel bee that stings. 

W. D. Howells. 

— 


222 








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• • 








4 




* 




223 


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NOVEMBER 16 

Chinquepen. Nelumbo lutea, Justice shall be, done. 

Then tread the shady avenue 
Beneath the cedar’s gloom, 

Or gum tree, with its fleckered shade 
Or chinquapen’s perfume. 

Caroline Gilman. 

How would you be if He which is the top of judgment, should 
judge you as you are? 

Shakespeare. 

They shall own thee the sweetest and fairest of flowers 
That smile in our woodlands or blush in our bowers. 

They shall own thee a lovelier gem of delight 
Than they that illumine the veil of mid-night. 

F. S. Osgood 


NOVEMBER 17 

Dead leaves. Sadness. 

The wind that wafts them to their doom 
Is the same that swept along 
In the freshness of their summertime 
And blessed them with their song. 

Jane Worthington. 

Life’s vain delusions are gone by 
Its idle hopes are o’er 
Yet age remembers with a sigh 
The days that are no more. 

R. Southey. 

After a season gay and brief 
Condemned to fade and flee. 

Montgomery. 


NOVEMBER 18 

Burs. Bidens Frondosa. Rudeness. 

Where I beheld with gladness ever new 
That sort of fragrant dew 
Which lodges in the beggarly tents of such 
Vile weeds as virtuous plants disdain to touch 
And with rough bearded burs, night after night 
Up gathered by the morning tender and true 
Into her chaste light. 

A. Cary. 

This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, 

Which gives men stomach to digest his words 
With better appetite. 

Shakespeare. 


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NOVEMBER 19 

Jacob's Ladder. Polemonium VanBruntioe. Come down to me. 

See, I have flung a fair flower to thee 
May not its name my fond hope tell? 

Oh for thy lover let it woo thee: 

And ask thy blush what it means "ma belle” 

Last night the patriarch’s dream was mine 
An angel came from heaven to me:— 

Its smiles, its tresses were so like thine 
I think it could have been none but thee. 

Then realize love that radiant dream 
Fly from thy tyrant’s savage pride; 

Descend-Oh seraph, by night’s dim beam! 

And morn shall hail with a smile my bride. 

F. S. Osgood. 


NOVEMBER 20 

Yucca. Yucca filamentosa. Authority. 

A thick sharp nest of dagger-pointed leaves 
Black-tipped from gray mesa rises green 
And from its heart there springs amidst the sheen 
As a white pinioned bird the sunshine cleaves, 

As hope that life’s sharp bitterness relieves- 
A blossom-spire that greets the sky serene 
In calm dominion o’er the desert scene. 

Thick hung with creamy bells that chime strange breves 

O Yucca gloriosa. Spirit soft 

And full of strange mysterious subtle scent. 

Slow swing thy fair white blossom bells aloft 
In the calm mesa’s wise environment 
Ring the dirge of that old race which oft 
Heard music in thy bells and smiled content. 

F. E. Pratt. 

A man in authority is but a candle in the wind, sooner wasted or 
blown out than under a bushel. ^ 

Beamont and Fletcher. 


NOVEMBER 21 

Fairies Fires. Pyrus Japonica. 

And I think thou hast stolen the fairies fire 
To give them their changing light 
And lovers below may in vain aspire 
To a being so wildly bright. 

Lucy Hooper. 

The flowers which cold in prison keep 
Now laugh the frost to scorn. 

Richard Edwards. 

Yet who but they have lit these tiny fires. 

That gleam and glow amid the wintry scene? 

The gay and spendthrift flowers; here they are 

Lighting their ruddy beacons at the sun 

To melt away the snow. L. A. Twamly. 

How far that little candle throws his beam 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

Shakespeare. 


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227 






NOVEMBER 22 

Borage. Borago officinalis. 

“I borage bring courage” 

“Ego borago gaudia semper ago’ 
Borage and hellebore fill two scenes 
Sovereign plants to purge the veins 
Of melancholy and clear the heart 
Of those black fumes which make it smart. 


The flaming rose gleamed swarthy red 
The borage gleamed as blue. 


Bluntness. 


Burton. 


Geo. MacDonald. 


I am not a man of many words but I thank you. 


Shakespeare. 


NOVEMBER 23 

Sorrel. Rumex Acetosa. 

See the mother pearly tips 
Of the pink white sorrel’s lips. 


Joy. 


Jas. H. Morse. 


All Godlike things are joyous: they have touched God and so carry 
with them an irresistible gladness everywhere. 

Faher. 

There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away. 

Byron. 

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy. 

Shakespeare. 

But were there ever any 
Writhed not at passing joy? 

Keats. 


NOVEMBER 24 

Hyssop. Hyssopus officinalis. 

Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. 


Cleanliness. 
Pss. Psalms. 


’Tis in ourselves that we are thus and thus,.Our bodies 

are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners; so that if we plant 

nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed thyme, . have it 

sterile with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the power and 
corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. 


Shakespeare. 

Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God. 

Bible. 


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NOVEMBER 25 

Citron. Citrus Medica. Ill nature! beauty. 

In the Citron trees are nightingales forever stricken mute 
And the siren sits her fingers on the pulses of the lute. 

T. B. Aldrich. 

Through vistas dun of tall trees she would pass 
Cedar, or waving pine or great palm 
Through orange groves, citron myrtle walks 
Alleys of roses, beds of sweetest flowers. 

Edwin Atherstone. 

Beauty was lent to nature as the type 
Of heaven’s unspeakable and holy joy, 

Where all perfection makes the sun of bliss. 

Mrs. Hale. 


NOVEMBER 26 


Cypress. Cupressus. 

Despair. 


Dark tree still sad when other’s grief is fled, 

The only constant mourner o’er the dead. 

Byron. 

Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees. 

Shakespeare. 


Through the abysses of a joyless heart 
The heaviest plumet of despair can go. 

Wm. Wordsworth. 

NOVEMBER 27 


Verbena. Verbena officinalis. 

Pray for me. 

“The garden is in bloom” he said 
“With lilies pale and slender 

With roses and verbenas red 



And fuchsias splendor” 

Mrs. M. E. Bradley. 

O thou by whom we come to God 
The life, the truth, the way 
The path of prayer Thyself hast trod 
Lord, teach us how to pray. 

Jas. Montgomery. 


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NOVEMBER 28 

Tulip tree. Liriodendron. 

If fever’s fervid rage 
Glowed in the boiling veins 


Anxiously they sought 
The liriodendron, with its varied bloom 
Orange and green and gold. 

Humble we must be, if to Heaven we go 
High is the roof there but the gate is low 
Whene’er thou speak’st look with lowly eye— 

Grace is increased by humility. 

Robert Herrick. 


NOVEMBER 29 

Evergreens. Poverty. 

They stood by the graves and hung on the headstones 
Garlands of autumn leaves and evergreens fresh from the forest. 

Longfellow. 

Blessed are the poor of spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Bible. 

What doth the poor man’s son inherit? 

Stout muscles and a sinewy heart; 

A hardy frame, a hardier spirit. 

King of two hands he does his part 
For every useful toil and art; 

A heritage it seems to me 
A king might wish to hold in fee. 

J. R. Lowell. 


NOVEMBER 30 

Thistle. Carduus. Never forget. 

The flower of Scotland 
All others that excell 
The thistle’s purple bonnet 
And the bonny heather bell 
O, they’re the flowers of Scotland 
All others that excell. 

Hogg. 

Our thistle^s brave, 

With its stings and prickles. 

Geo. Thornbury. 

The thistle shall bloom on the beds of the brave 
The thistle of Scotland, the thistle so green. 

Hogg. 

. Triumphant be the thistle still unfurl’d 

Dear symbol wild, on freedom’s hills it grows 
Where Fingal stemm’d the tyrants of the world 
And Roman eagles found unconquered foes. 

Thos. Campbell. 

The heart that has truly loved never forgets. 

Moore. 


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Poplar. 


Poplar. 

DECEMBER 1 

Populus. Affliction. 

The poplar that with silver lines his leaf. 

Cowper. 

As falls an oak, poplar or lofty pine 

With new edges axes on the mountain hewn 

Right through for structure of some gallant bark, 

So fell Sarpedon. 

Homer. 


Affliction may subdue the cheek, but not take in the mind. 

Shakespeare. 



Through every thread of life the dark threads run. 

Whittier. 

Alders. 

DECEMBER 2 

Alnus. 

Sunbeams watched their play 

With flickering light and shade 

Through the screen the alders made. 

A. A. Proctor. 

To trace the brook up to its highest fountain in the shade 

Of thick tufts of alders and go down 

By all its leaps and windings gathering there 

The forest roses and the nameless flowers 

That open in the wilderness and live 

Awhile in sweetest loveliness and die 

Without an eye to watch them or a heart 

To gladden in their beauty. Percival. 

A chance may win that by a chance was lost 

The well that holds no great takes little fish 

In something all in all are crossed 

Few all they need but none have all they wish 

Unmeddled joys here to no man befall 

Who least hath some, who most hath never all. 

Robt. Southwell , S. J. 

Hazel. 

DECEMBER 3 

Corylus Americana. Reconciliation. 

Its tints are not the brightest 

Of fragrance it has none 

But to me it is the dearest 

That blooms beneath the sun 

Far around my childhood clambered 

The hazel bushes tall 

And their tiny modest blossoms 

Are the dearest bloom of all. 

Mrs. C. V. Adams. 

And deep his mid-night lair had made 

In lone Glenartney’s hazel shade. 

. Scott . 

This noble passion 

Child of integrity, hath from my soul 

Wiped the black scruples reconciled my thoughts 

To thy good truth and honour. Shakespeare 


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DECEMBER 4 

Patience. Rurnux. Patience. 

And round about he taught sweet flowers to growe 
Oxeye still green; and bitter patience. 

Spencer. 

How poor are they that have not patience 
What wound did ever heal but by degrees? 

Shakespeare. 

Be patience, for the world is broad and wide. 

Shakespeare. 

A very little thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience. 

Shakespeare 


DECEMBER 5 

Cedar. Larix. Spritirual strength. 

There were dark cedars, whose loose mossy tresses 

And white powder’d dog trees 

Gaudy as rustics in their May time dresses. 

J. R. Drake. 

He flourishes, 

And like a mountain cedar reach his branches 
To all the plains about him. 

Shakespeare. 

The strength of man sinks in the hour of trial 
But there doth live a power, that to the battle 
Girdeth the weak. 

Joanna Baillie. 


DECEMBER 6 

Yew tree. Sorrow. 

Make not your rosary of yew berries. 

Keats. 

This lonely yew tree stands 
Far from all human dwelling. 

Wordsworth. 

Beneath these rugged elms, that yew tree’s shade, 

Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap 
Each in his narrow cell forever laid 
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

Gray. 

When sorrows come, they come not single spied, 

But in battalions. 

Shakespeare. 


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DECEMBER 7 

Oenothera bennis. 


Evening Primrose. 


Inconstancy. 


A tuft of evening primroses 

O’er which the mind may hover till it dozes; 

O’er which it well might take a pleasant sleep, 

But that ’tis ever started by the leap 
Of buds into the riper flowers. 

Keats. 

You gave me the key to your heart, my love 
Then why do you make me knock? 

Oh, that was yesterday saints above 
And last night I changed the lock. 

John Boyle O'Reilly. 

“Yes” I answered you last night, 

“No” this morning sir I say, 

Colors seen by candle light 
Will not look the same by day. 

E. B. Browning. 


DECEMBER 8 

Lily of the Valley. Convallaria multiflora. Return of Happiness. 

No flower amid the garden fairer grows 
Than the sweet lily of the lowly vale, 

The queen of flowers. 

Keats. 


The naiad like lily of the vale, 

Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale. 

Shelly. 


Fair star though I be doomed to prove 
That rapture’s tears are mixed with pain; 

Ah, still I feel ’tis sweet to love 
But sweeter to be loved again. 

John Ley don, M. D. 


DECEMBER 9 

Plane trees. Planer a. Genius. 

And we beside the fount 
With perfect hecatombs the Gods adored 
Beneath the plane tree from whose root a stream 
Ran crystal clear. 

[Iliad] Homer. 

Like a chenar-tree grove when winter throws 
O’er all its tufted heads his feathering snows 

Moore. 

Like camel’s cedar or the palm 
That gladdens mid Engaddi’s dew 
Or plane tree set by waters calm 

I stood and round my fragrance threw Aubrey de Vere. 

To clothe the fiery thought 
In simple words succeeds, 

For still the craft of genius is 

To mask a king in weeds. R. W. Emerson. 


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DECEMBER 10 

Box. Buxus sempervirends. Constancy. 

Waste sandy valleys, once perplexed with thorn 
The spicy fir and shapely box adorn. 

Pope. 

The mourner yew, and builder oak were there; 

The beech, the swimming alders and the plane 
Hard box and linden of a softer grain. 

Dry den. 

’Tis when the sigh—in youth sincere 
And only then 

The sigh that’s breathed for one to hear 
Is by that one that only dear 
Breathed back again. 

Moore. 


DECEMBER 11 

Dulse. Halymenia edulis. 

Blowing o’er fields of dulse and measureless meadows of sea grass 
Blowing o’er rocky wastes, and the grottos and gardens of ocean. 

Longfellow. 

The crimson leaf of the dulse is seen 
To blush like a banner bathed in laughter. 

James Percival. 

Ocean, thou dreadful and tumultuous home 
Of dangers, at eternal war with man, 

Wide opening and loud roaring rearing still for more 
Too faithful mirror how dost thou reflect 
The melancholy face of human life. 

Young. 


DECEMBER 12 

Sandal tree Santalum album. 

The sandal tree perfumes when riven 
The axe that laid it low 
Let man who hopes to be forgiven 
Forgive and bless his foe. 

Saadi. 

• Filled with the breath of sandal wood 
And the Khoten musk and aloes and myrrh. 

T. B. Aldrich. 

True fame is hardly to be bought 

She sometimes follows where she is not sought. 

Persian Proverb. 


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DECEMBER 13 


Olive. Olea Europaea. 

Peace. 

Olives bene for peace 

Whem warres do surcease. 

Peace, thy olive wand extend 

And bid wild war his ravage end 

Man with brother man to meet 

And as brother kindly greet. 

Far away the roar of passion dieth 

And loving thoughts rise calm and peacefully 

And no rude storm how fierce soe’er he flieth 
Disturbs the soul that dwells 0 Lord in Thee. 

Spencer. 

Burns. 

H. B. Stowe. 

DECEMBER 14 


Hemlock. Conium. You will be 

my death. 

My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains 
My senses, as though of hemlock I had drunk. 

Keats. 

0 hemlock tree, 0 hemlock tree how faithful are thy branches 

Green not alone in summer time 

But in the winters frost and rime. 

Longfellow. 

O, death all eloquent, you only prove 

What dust we dote on, when ’tis man we love. 

Pope. 

DECEMBER 15 


Valerian. Valeriana. Accommodating disposition. 

Gay looserife there and pale valerian spring. 

Scott. 

There springen herbes grete and small 

The licoris and the setewale [valerian]. 

Chaucer. 

You may ride us 

With one swift kiss a thousand furlongs ere, 

With spur we beat an acre. 


Shakespeare. j 

' 


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DECEMBER 16 


Linden tree. Tilia Europoea. 

Conjugal love. 

The tall linden’s flung a glimmering shade. 


Sarah S. Jacobs. 

The shadows of the linden trees 

Lay moving on the grass. 

Longfellow. 

If thou lookest on the lime leaf 

Thou a heart’s form wilt discover. 

Heine. 

The tangled woodbines 


Lilacs and flowering limes and scented thorns 

And some from whom the voluptuous winds of June 

Catch their perfumes. 

Barry Cornwall. 

And the lime at dewy eve 

Diffusing odours. 

Cowper. 

The earth was sad the garden was a wild 
And man—the hermit sighed till woman 

smiles. Cowper. 


DECEMBER 17 

Oak. Quercus. 

Aloft, the ash and warrior oak 
Cast anchor in the rifted rock. 

A glorious tree is the old gray oak 

He has stood for a thousand years, 

Has stood and frowned 

On the trees around 

Like a king among his peers. 

Let me not see the patriot’s high bequest 
Great liberty, how great in plain attire, 
With the base purple of a court oppressed, 
Bowing her head and ready to expire. 

Give me liberty or give me death. 


Liberty. 


Shakespeare. 


Geo. Hill. 


Keats. 
Patrick Henry. 


Sycamore. 


DECEMBER 18 

Plantanus occidentalis. 


Curiosity. 


Nor unnoticed pass 
The sycamore, capricious in attire 
Nor green nor tawny; 

And ere autumn yet 

Has changed the woods in scarlet honours bright. 

Cowper. 

Hark the laburnum from his opening flower 
This cherry creeper greets in whisper light 
While the grim fir rejoicing in the night 
Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamores. 

Arthur Henry Hallan. 

I loathe that low vice curiosity. 


The ever curious are not ever wise. 


Byron. 

Massinger. 


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Distrust. 


Lavender. 


DECEMBER 19 


He from his lass him lavender hath sent 
Showing his love and doth requital crave. 

Drayton. 

And lavender whose spikes of azure bloom 
Shall be, erewhile in arid bundles bound. 

Wm. Shenstone. 

And lavender and spikenard sweet 
And atters, nedd and richest musk . 

T. B. Aldrich. 

You doubt not me; nor have I spent my blood 
To have my faith no better understood 
Your soul’s above the business of distrust 
Nothing but love could make you so unjust. 

Dryden. 


DECEMBER 20 

Witch hazel. Hamamelis Virginiana. A spell. 

The wild witch hazel, frought with mystic power 
To ban or bless as sorcery rules the hour. 

Sarah Whitman. 

Friendship is constant in all other things 
Save in the office and affairs of love; 

Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues 
Let every eye negotiate for itself 
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch 
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. 

Shakespeare. 

Love is the subtlest enchanter, that ever 
Waved a wand or muttered a spell; 

A magical rod is each dart in his quiver 
The heart’s hidden treasures to find and to tell. 

F. S. Osgood. 


DECEMBER 21. 

Butternut. Juglans Cinerea. 

The new leafed butternut and quivering poplar to the roving breeze 
Give a balsamic fragrance. 


Bryant. 

Our blessings should be sought, not claimed 
Cherished, not watched with jealous eye; 

Love is too precious to be named 
Save with a reverence deep and high. 

A. Cary. 


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Ivy. 


DECEMBER 22 

Hedera helix. Friendship, Matrimony. 


The ivy’s meet for.minstrels hair. 


Scott. 


Creeping where no life is seen 
A rare old plant is the ivy green. 

Charles Dickens. 

Down thy fitful breeze thy numbers flung 

Till envious ivy did around thee cling 

Muffling with verdant ringlet every string. Scott. 


Henry is able to enrich his Queen 
And not to seek a queen to make him rich. 

So worthless peasants bargain for their wives 

As market men for oxen, sheep or horse 

Marriage is a matter of more worth. Shakespeare. 


Calm wedded affection that home rooted plant 
Which sweetens seclusion and smiles in the shade. 

Moore. 


DECEMBER 23 


Ambrosia. Love returned. 

His altar breathes 

Ambrosial odours and ambrosial flowers. 


Milton. 


The world is filled with folly and sin 
And love must cling where it can, I say, 
For beauty is easy enough to win 
And one is not loved every day. 


Bulwer Lytton. 


DECEMBER 24 

Ceruse. Hospitality. 


Refulgent gold and silver thrice refined 
And scarlet grain and ceruse, Indian wood 
Of lucid dye serene fresh emeralds 
But newly broken by the herbs and flowers 
Placed in that fair recess in color all 
Had been surpassed as great surpasses less. 

Dante. 

Freely thou givest, and thy word is freely given. 

He only, who forgets to hoard has learnt to live. 

Keble. 

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have 
entertained angels unawares. 

Bible. 


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DECEMBER 25 

Holly. Ilex aculeata baceifera. Foresight. 

When Christmas revels in a world of snow 
And bids her berries blush, her carols flow. 

Sam'l. Rogers. 

O, reader hast thou ever stood to see 
The holly tree? 

The eye that contemplates it will perceive 
Its glossy leaves 

Ordered by an intelligence so wise 
As might confound the atheist’s sophistries. 

R. Southey. 

In the hedge the frosted berries grow 
The scarlet holly the purple sloe. 

Sarah H. Whitman. 

Our reason prompts us to a future state 

The last appeal from fortune and from fate 

Where God’s all righteous ways will be declared. Dryden. 


Syringa. 


DECEMBER 26 


Memory. 


Beneath some cool syringa’s scented shade. 


I cannot paint to memory’s eye 
The scene, the glance I dearest love 
Unchanged themselves, in me they die 
Or fain or false their shadows prove. 


W. S. Landon. 


John Keble. 


Dreams of my youthful days 
I’d freely give 
Ere my life’s close 

All the dull days I’m destined yet to live 
For one of those. 


P. J. de Beranger. 


DECEMBER 27 

Cedar of Lebannon. Incorruptible. 

Fair is the rose when laughing in its bud 
Fair o’er the plain tower the tall cedar wood 
She comes, the cedars and the rose are dull 
Even Lebannon bows, though proud and beautiful 

John Gawinski. 

The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebannon 
which He hath planted. 


Psalm, c. 


This corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal 
must put on immortality. 


Bible. 


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DECEMBER 28 


Mistletoe. Viscum album. I surmount all difficulties. 

Of old the sacred mistletoe 

The Druids altar bound. 

Sarah J. Hale. 

Mystic mistletoe flaunted 

Such as the Druids cut down with hatches at 

Yule-tide. 

Longfellow. 

What stronger breast plate than a heart untainted? 

Shakespeare. 

True conscious honour is to feel no sin 

He’s armed without that’s innocent within. 

Pope. 

DECEMBER 29 


Heath. Erica ciliaris. 

Solitude. 

The wild heath displays her purple dyes 

But vainly did the heath flower shed 

Its moreland fragrance round his head. 

Pope. 

Scott. 

Scocia hath heather hills sweet their perfume. 

Geo. Lunt. 

0 sacred solitude, divine retreat 

Choice of the prudent envy of the great 

By thy pure stream for in thy waving shade 
We court fair wisdom, that celestial maid. 

Young. 

DECEMBER 30 


Mandrake. Atropa mandrogora. 

Horrow. 

And shriek like mandrakes torn out of the earth 

That living mortals, hearing them run mad. 

Shakespeare. 

The phantom shapes-Oh touch not them 

That appal the murderer’s sight 

Lurk in the fleshy mandrake’s stem 

That shriek when torn at night. 

Over them sad horrow with grim hue 

Did always soar, beating his iron wings, 

And after him owls and night raven flew 

And hateful messengers of heavy things. 

Moore. 

Spencer. 


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DECEMBER 31 

Canterbury bells. Campanula punctata. Gratitude. 

When last these trembling blossoms swung 
Bright pendants on the bending spray 
Like tiny bells by fairies rung. 

In tinkling murmurs all the day. 

Mrs. J. C. R. Dorr. 


And bells of Canterbury too. 


Walter Crane. 


While from the dewy dells 
And every wildwood bower 
A thousand little feathered bells 
Ring out the matin hour. 

Lydia J. Pierson. 

And the nuns used to dream as they roamed about 
The convent garden of St. Ursula 
That at matins and vespers a peal rang out 
From the fairy bells of the campanula. 

F. S. Osgood. 


Let never day or night unhallowed pass 
But still remember what the Lord hath done. 

Shakespeare. 


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